More than 83,000 students find out on Wednesday whether or not they have got a third-level place when the Central Admissions Office (CAO) sends out its first round of offers. If last year is any guide, roughly half of them will get their first choice of course at a higher education institution, while others will get a place further down their list.
Once the dust has settled and term starts the students will embark on the next chapter of their lives. It will be a time of excitement and opportunity. What it will not be is properly funded.
The third-level system remains chronically underfunded after decades of steadily increasing enrolments matched by declining investment. A 2022 analysis by the European Commission identified a funding shortfall of €307 million in the annual budget for the sector of around €1.6 billion.
The Government’s response was to publish a report called Funding the Future in May 2022, which promised to close the gap. More than two years later core funding has been increased by just €106 million, according to the Department of Higher Education. This has mostly gone to meet public sector pay awards and the cost of increased student numbers, according to the institutions.
There had been hope and some expectation that the sector will be put on a more sustainable financial footing following Simon Harris’s accession to the top job in Government. He was previously Minister for Higher Education and appeared at the time to be open to the idea of meeting the third-level funding shortfall from the National Training Fund (NTF). The fund, which is paid for by a levy on employers, currently has a surplus of €1.5 billion which Harris himself once described as “staggering”.
The NTF is intended to support the training of those in employment or seeking employment. Employers and the universities agree it could be used to fund suitable courses at third level. However, concerns in other parts of the Government about the impact on public spending targets has so far stymied the initiative.
As Budget 2025 takes shape and an election looms Harris may never be better placed than he is now to address the third-level funding deficit through the disbursement of the NTF surplus. But the indications are that the approach Harris favoured while he was minister, of once-off reductions in fees and more grant support, will be repeated. This may be popular with students and their parents but does not address the fundamental problem of underfunding.
It is also short sighted. The value of making access to third-level education easier is undermined if standards are falling. The consequences for the wider economy and graduate job prospects must also be considered. Higher education is vital to competitiveness and a lack of investment will come at a long-term cost.