Students up in arms!

More protests on the streets of Dublin this coming week with the students to the fore again.

The Union of Students in Ireland will hold a public demonstration in opposition to Ireland’s third level registration fee.

The demo will be held at 1pm on Tuesday, October 27th outside Dail Eireann.

Ireland’s registration fees have increased by 124% since 2002 and now cost at least €1500.

Fees were abolished so that government would take responsibility for funding Higher Education in this country.

The USI believes that public funding is the fairest and most efficient way to cover the cost of education.

USI President, Peter Mannion, said:

“Claiming that we have free education is a bit of a joke, but paying a registration fee of €1500 upfront is no laughing matter for many students.

Students and their families, many of whom have been hit by the current recession, are struggling to pay this fee and some are being forced to drop out of college as a direct result of it.

We are calling on the Government to ensure that this fee is not raised further in the upcoming budget. Doing so would be detrimental to the future of thousands of students who cannot afford to pay this ‘entrance fee’.”

USI Eastern Area Officer, Chris Bond, said:

“Ireland purports to have no third level tuition fees.

The registration fee was brought in to cover the cost of student services, but instead over €600 of the fee goes towards tuition costs.

This is in stark contrast to fees in Germany, where students are charged tuition fees of €1000 per year.

Meanwhile, Austria charges tuition fees of just €726 per year, Luxembourg charges €200 per year, Portugal €500 per year and Belgium charges €800 per year.”

We said it before here that unfortunately we are going to have to get used to this with the mess the economy is in.
€1500 is not unreasonable money for college education. It is however the quality of the education I would worry about.