Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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762. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of students that applied for a SUSI grant in each of the years 2015 to 2020 and to date in 2021; the number of students that were granted and refused a grant in each year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21763/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Student Grant Scheme is the principal support for students in financial terms by my Department. It provides grant assistance to eligible students attending approved full-time courses in approved further or higher educational institutions who meet the prescribed eligibility criteria of the relevant scheme. The Scheme is administered on behalf of my Department by the national student grant awarding authority SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland), a business unit of CDETB.  Under the terms of the Student Grant Scheme, grant assistance is awarded to eligible students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the prescribed conditions of funding including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means. 

In the academic year 2020/21 a total of 100,924 applications were received by SUSI, 79,232 of which were awarded grant support, 18, 589 were refused and 3,103 were cancelled. I have attached the data requested by the Deputy for previous years.

A student may be refused grant support by SUSI for a variety of reasons including:

- The student did not meet the eligibility criteria as outlined in the Student Support Act 2011 and Student Support Scheme 2020;

- The student was found to exceed the reckonable income limits outlined in the Student Support Scheme 2020;

- The student was repeating a year and so was not progressing in their education;

- The student was in receipt of Back to Education Allowance and so is not eligible for a maintenance grant;

- The student is attending a course which is not approved under the Student Support Scheme 2020.

Please note, SUSI opened to receive renewal applications for 2021/2022 on 31/3/2021, and for new applications on 22/4/21.

25,511 applications had been received up to 22/4/21. As the vast majority of these applications as still in the assessment process, it is not possible to provide final status figures for 2021/2022 at this stage of the SUSI processing calendar.

The Deputy will be aware of the Programme for Government commitment to among other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. My Department is currently overseeing the implementation of the review through a Steering Committee with student representation as well as representation from SUSI. In excess of 250 submissions have been received from individuals and organisations via a public consultation process. The final report will be available in Autumn and will inform future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.