Withdrawl of grant funding from students during pandemic is harsh – Aontú Waterford

SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) is Ireland’s national awarding authority for all higher and further education grants. Applications for student grant funding are made from April to November for each upcoming academic year. Statistics released to Aontú, by Higher Education Minister Simon Harris, reveal that 2,050 students in the State have had their funding withdrawn in the current academic year, with 39 of these students being natives of Waterford.

“The process of reviewing applications by SUSI is too slow. When Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín TD raised this matter with Minister Harris in December 2020, the number of students whose grant had been withdrawn was given as 743, but this figure had risen to 2,050 by the end of March 2021. Close to two-thirds of these students, therefore, were not notified of grant withdrawal until about half-way through their academic year,” a spokesperson for Aontú said.

“In most of the 2,050 cases nationally, the grant was simply stopped, but for 237 of the 2,050 students, SUSI is now pursuing the students seeking actual repayment from them. For some of these students this repayment amounts to thousands of euro – money which many students may have never seen, because the funding was paid directly to the colleges, not into the students’ bank accounts.

“In some cases, SUSI incorrectly deemed applicants as qualifying for the grant, and then withdrew that funding upon review. In these cases, SUSI made the mistake, not the student, and yet it appears that SUSI are requesting repayment from the student. Even in those cases where there were errors in the original application from the student, we in Aontú are calling on SUSI to take a more humane approach.

“The mental health of many students, already affected by Covid-19 disruption to studies and examinations, will likely be further threatened by requests for repayment of funds which are beyond the means of students and their families. The past 12 months have been stressful enough, without having to cope with huge financial burdens”.

DEBT BUILD UP

Legally, SUSI may be within their rights in demanding repayment in some circumstances, but the sums involved are trivial in comparison with the billions being borrowed and spent by the state for tackling Covid-19, according to Aontú.

“Repayments should be waived for this year. The application process needs to be simplified in future years and SUSI procedures for reviewing and vetting applications need to be speeded up, so that students are notified of their ineligibility for grants earlier in the academic year. This should help prevent the building up of large amounts of debt over a period of many months, which students may then struggle to repay.

“The current system is unacceptable and needs reform. Students deserve better than this, the spokesperson concluded.