Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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350. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of increasing the SUSI income bracket no maintenance 50% tuition fees or 100% student contribution by 10, 20, 30 and 40 %, respectively; the number of additional recipients who would be brought within the bracket as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34023/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that there are various income thresholds used depending on the type of grant, family size etc. While SUSI has statistics on those students who have applied for grant support and can estimate with some degree of certainty, what impact changes to the thresholds might have for those students on lower income levels, the accuracy of its estimates become less reliable at the higher income levels. Prospective applicants on higher incomes may not have applied for support as their income was above the relevant threshold. As such, it is not possible to accurately cost the number of additional students who may qualify for support, if the thresholds are increased.

Allowing for the limitations regarding the accuracy of the costings, based on data from the 2019/20 academic year, the estimated cost to the Exchequer of increasing the SUSI income bracket no maintenance 50% tuition fees or 100% student contribution by 10% , would be in the region of €13m.

The number of additional eligible students would be circa 8,000.

The above figures do not include any changes to the income thresholds for the special rate of maintenance grants which are linked to long-term social welfare payments nor do they include any changes to the post-graduate income thresholds. 

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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351. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of increasing the SUSI income bracket no maintenance, 50% student contribution by 10, 20, 30 and 40 %, respectively; the number of additional recipients who would be brought within the bracket as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34024/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that there are various income thresholds used depending on the type of grant, family size etc. While SUSI has statistics on those students who have applied for grant support and can estimate with some degree of certainty, what impact changes to the thresholds might have for those students on lower income levels, the accuracy of its estimates become less reliable at the higher income levels. Prospective applicants on higher incomes may not have applied for support as their income was above the relevant threshold. As such, it is not possible to accurately cost the number of additional students who may qualify for support, if the thresholds are increased.

Allowing for the limitations regarding the accuracy of the costings, the estimated cost of increasing the SUSI income bracket of no maintenance, 50% student contribution by 10% and the number of additional recipients would result in the following. (Please note data used is 2019-20 figures with applied requested changes.)

- Increase of 4000 to 5000 additional recipients based on SUSI applications received for the  2019/20 academic year.

- Increase in cost to the exchequer would be in the region of €6-€7 million.

The above figures do not include any changes to the income thresholds for the special rate of maintenance grants which are linked to long-term social welfare payments nor do they include any changes to the post-graduate income thresholds.

 The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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352. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of increasing the SUSI income thresholds by 10%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34025/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that there are various income thresholds used depending on the type of grant, family size etc. While SUSI has statistics on those students who have applied for grant support and can estimate with some degree of certainty, what impact changes to the thresholds might have for those students on lower income levels, the accuracy of its estimates become less reliable at the higher income levels. Prospective applicants on higher incomes may not have applied for support as their income was above the relevant threshold. As such, it is not possible to accurately cost the number of additional students who may qualify for support, if the thresholds are increased.

Allowing for the limitations regarding the accuracy of the costings, it is estimated that a 10% increase would cost in the region of €30m.

The above figures do not include any changes to the income thresholds for the special rate of maintenance grants which are linked to long-term social welfare payments nor do they include any changes to the post-graduate income thresholds.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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353. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of increasing the maintenance grant by 10%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34026/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The estimated cost of increasing the maintenance grant by 10% is in the region of €16 Million.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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354. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to the Exchequer of extending SUSI to cover the full cost of fees for all students eligible for support based on current SUSI thresholds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34027/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Under my Department’s free fees schemes, the Exchequer provides funding toward the tuition fee costs of eligible full-time undergraduate students with students paying the student contribution fee. Combined maximum of €6,270.  It is important to note in relation to this issue that under the Free Fees Schemes the Exchequer currently makes a very substantial contribution amounting to €340m to meeting the tuition fee costs of eligible undergraduate Higher Education students.

However, undergraduates in receipt of the SUSI grant have their student contribution paid on their behalf. For the 2020/21 academic year, 61,621 undergraduate students received 100% student contribution and a further 3,914 undergraduate students received 50% student contribution. Total cost to the Exchequer of €192.3m.

Most Irish and EU undergraduate students can expect to pay between €4,000 and €7,500 in student contribution and tuition fees.  For the purposes of this calculation, if all undergraduate students in receipt of SUSI support were to pay maximum fees of €7,500.  The total cost to the Exchequer would be in the region of €80.6m.

With regards to Post Graduates.  EU and EEA Post Graduate students can expect the cost for a year of full time study to be between €4,000 and €9,000.  There were 2,518 students in receipt of a SUSI grant for the academic year at a cost to the exchequer of €9.13m.  For the purposes of this calculation, if all post graduates students were to pay maximum fees of €9,000 the additional cost to the exchequer would be in the region of €13.53m.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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355. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of SUSI recipients under each income bracket; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34028/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The was a total of 74,755  SUSI grant recipients for the 2020/21 academic year.  The number of recipients under each income bracket as requested by the Deputy is in the table attached.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

Number of recipients for each income bracket