Not Funding Our Future: The Irish Government’s Plan of Investment and Reform for Universities is Falling Woefully Short
By News Reporter David Patrick Twomey
“Today, we settle the question on higher education funding.”
Last year, TD Simon Harris, Minister for Further & Higher Education, Research, Innovation & Science, firmly proclaimed a strategy to solve Irish universities’ issues of severe underfunding after committing to recommendations from the Funding Our Future report. The two core issues, cost of education for students and the deficit in core funding, were set to be transformed through student grant reform and an additional €307 million a year for universities. However, only one year after Harris’ definitive response to the deteriorating university standings, the government’s implementation of the strategy is a far cry from their goal. In a letter to An Taoiseach, An Tánaiste, and four TD’s (including Harris) last month, the Irish Universities’ Association (IUA) asked for urgent action.
What are some of the key issues in Irish Universities?
The Funding Our Future report identified an annual deficit of €307 million in third-level funding, due to the government’s inability to adjust the budget for third-level education adequately since austerity cuts during the last recession. The effect of this has been made abundantly clear in the Times Higher Education University Rankings: Ireland’s highest ranked university, Trinity College Dublin, was ranked 76th globally in 2011. In 2023, it sat at 161st.
The level of funding has not increased in congruence with the growing number of students in Irish Universities. Ireland saw an increase of 22.5% in students attending higher education from 2010-2020 of up to 245,000 students. The government’s average annual spending on public tertiary education per full-time student for OECD countries was $14,839 in 2022. In Ireland, it was $12,588.
This lack of demographic planning in funding has left Irish Universities with one of the worst student-to-teacher ratios in Europe, a strong indicator in the quality of education that a student receives. In 2018, Ireland had a student to teacher ratio of 19:1, in comparison to the EU 27 average of 15:1. This year has seen the Irish ratio increase further to 23:1.
The IUA has stated that “Our capacity for this has now been stretched to the limit.” With Irish Universities already slipping in global rankings, it seems that this will only continue if the government does not curb the worrying trends.
“Our capacity for this has now been stretched to the limit.”
One of the reforms in the framework is to increase the use of the National Training Fund (NTF) for educators: this fund has swelled enormously to €1.5 billion this year. These are reserves, meaning that Universities cannot use the fund unless allocated by the government. In their letter to the government last month, the IUA urged them to start “unlocking” this fund to create a Skills Development Fund in order to improve training.
The Cost of Education for Students
The other core issue of the reforms, cost of education for students, is a growing concern for lower-income households. 670,000 people in Ireland live below the poverty line, and in 2018/19 just 10% of Ireland’s students came from disadvantaged areas. Following the Funding Our Future framework, the government have aimed to push third level education for those from lower-income households through multiple areas of assistance. There has been a permanent €500 reduction in fees for households earning less than €100,000, €8 million added to the Student Assistance Fund, and a proposed increase in grant eligibility for students.
A central issue to the cost of education for students is the cost of living: from 2016/17 to 2021/22, the cost of living for students increased by 25% (Funding Our Future Report), most notably due to the rapidly rising accommodation prices. The report recommends reviewing the income threshold for student grants in response to the cost of living, but the rapid development of private student accommodation has pushed students’ rent to a higher cost than normal accommodation.
University College Cork’s (UCC) housing problem, reported in detail by News Editor Cormac McCarthy’s article “New Crow’s Nest Accommodation and UCC’s Housing Problem”, is a bizarre exploitation of student demand.
The cost of renting a single room in Cork City has risen 13% this year to an average of €614 per month. However, out of the 29 private student accommodations available in Cork City, the cost of renting a standard single room is now €869 per month. This is 41% premium which thousands of students who can’t find houses have to pay. Cork has seen a rapid expansion of high-cost private student accommodation, led by multinational asset management firms such as Round Hill Capital and CA Ventures. The primary function of new student accommodation in Cork seems to be as a corporate asset class, rather than a necessity for students during a cost-of-living crisis. Regardless of increasing grant eligibility, the government’s continued blind eye to this fundamental issue in the cost of living for students allows for even a perfect implementation of their new tertiary education strategy to have glaring flaws.
What has changed under the new strategy?
The change in third level strategy began implementation in last year’s budget. However, out of the €307 million funding deficit which Harris agreed to solve, merely €40 million was allocated. In response to the IUA’s disappointment, Harris stated that “there does need to be a dose of reality” due to the war in Ukraine and cost of living crises.
Only being €267 million shy of what universities needed to run at an adequate level last year, Harris later added that “We've paid €40 million of that, but we've done other things to help them as well.”
Perhaps the Irish government, rather than the IUA asking for a fix in the systemic underfunding of Irish institutions, need a “dose of reality”: with the current rate of progress, universities predict that it may take eight years for the government to reach adequate funding levels. Ireland has the ability to, rather easily, redevelop Irish universities if it wants to succeed in a long-term socio-economic strategy. As well as having the €1.5 billion surplus fund in the NTF, the Central Bank estimates that last year the budget had a surplus of €8.6 billion; the government has predicted a surplus of €10 billion this year and €16.2 billion surplus in 2024. As opposed to during the recession, this is no longer an issue of simply not having the money to invest in the future; it is a decision to not use potentially available funds to follow their own new strategy guidelines. Ireland should not return to the egregious spending of the Celtic Tiger but cannot let its most valued institutions continue to rot as the surplus reserves continue to climb.
Even if the new third level education strategy is followed verbatim, there is still potential issues for Universities down the line. In the Funding Our Future report, it is stated that:
“…this funding framework does not account for future demographic needs or new policy proposals for higher education”.
If developed to the €307 million necessity rather than the €40 million reality, the framework is not a push for Irish education to prosper, rather what is necessary to stabilise the declining system. Seemingly not learning from the issues of not planning for an increase in the number of students which was previously mentioned, it looks probable that the country will face the same problem down the line as the population continues to grow faster than the expected rate. In quite a sadly obvious case of irony, Ireland’s Funding Our Future strategy does not take the future into account.
With the next budget being announced this month, Ireland’s Universities desperately need the government to follow the Fund Our Future reforms that they agreed to follow; not to secure the country’s institutions’ long-term success, but to ensure their short-term safety. The issue of student accommodation’s extortionate pricing is highly unlikely to be addressed and will continue to be massive barrier for prospective students from disadvantaged areas. In their letter to the government, Irish College Presidents have urged students to “use all available opportunities to highlight the case for funding and to push for government action”. Despite Harris’ proclamation last year, the question of higher education funding is far from settled.
