Huge hike in Student Fees

national | miscellaneous | press release Wednesday July 09, 2008 17:24 by Student

Today UCD Social Work students learned they would have to pay 1,200 more in their second year for the same course Trinity offers.It now costs 7,200e to attend a course where we attend lectures for only 14 weeks in the year and are required to work for nothing for a further 14 weeks.

This is an outrageous positon when we compare with other colleges offering the identical qualification. It is a hike of 1,000e on what we paid for first year and 1.400e on what second years paid last year.

UCD 7200

UCC 6660

TCD 5937

NUIG 6540

We are paying €540 more than UCC and €1200 more than TCD. Though many will be on grants, it will be interesting to see if it extends to cover this hike. I understand this information will be available on Friday. We would be interested in hearing from other students about how we can oppose this together if others find themselves affected.

Even those who are receiving grants may also be affected as the local authority generally limit the course fees that they are willing to pay. Additionally those who pay fees are entitled to tax relief but this maximum limit on such qualifying fees for the academic years 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 is €5,000. Therefore the more fees we are forced to pay the less relief we can claim. Surely this challeges the basic notion of free education!!