Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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1265. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to decrease the qualifying criteria for the non-adjacent rate of the SUSI grant from 45 km to 24 km; the estimated cost involved in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39874/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The student maintenance grant is a contribution towards the living costs of a student. It is not intended to cover the full costs of attending college. The student grant scheme does however, provide for different levels of maintenance support, depending on means. Grants are also provided at adjacent and non-adjacent rates. The higher non-adjacent rates are intended to provide additional support to those students who may be living away from home.

Budget 2011 provided for a number of student grant measures which came into effect for the 2011/12 academic year, including the change in the assessment of the qualifying distance criterion for the non-adjacent rate of grant from 24 kilometres to 45 kilometres.

The 24km distance criterion was originally set in 1968 and had not been updated in more than 40 years. Since then, significant improvements have taken place in the road and rail network and it is considered that the revised distance criteria is more consistent with the type of distances that students may legitimately be expected to commute to college.

The current qualifying distance of 45km for the higher non-adjacent rate of student grant takes into account a reasonable radius within which students may commute on a daily basis.

The estimated cost to decrease the qualifying criteria for the non-adjacent rate from 45km to 24 kilometres is in the region of €28.5m.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, among other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. On foot of these commitments approval was given to commence a review of the Student Grant Scheme which is well underway and is being conducted by external consultants. 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.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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1266. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated number of students that would be affected by changing the SUSI adjacency rates from 45km to 25km, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39875/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The student grant scheme, administered by SUSI, provides maintenance grants to students who meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.

Student maintenance grants are payable at either the adjacent or non-adjacent rate. The adjacent rate of maintenance grant is payable in the case of students whose normal residence is 45km or less from the approved institution which he or she is attending. The non-adjacent rate of maintenance grant is payable in all other cases.

If this distance requirement for the non-adjacent rate was reduced from 45km to 25km it is estimated that 8651 students who received the adjacent rate of grant in the 2020/21 academic year would move into the non-adjacent bracket and received a higher rate of maintenance grant.

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.