Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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156. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of extending SUSI fee cover to part-time students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18522/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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During the 2020/2021 academic year, statistics from the Higher Education Authority show that there were 49,658 students studying at all levels in our publicly funded institutions on a part time basis.

The costs of extending the SUSI grant scheme to these part time students would depend on an assessment to see if they meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those which relate to course mode, nationality, residency, previous academic attainment (progression) and means. As they have not been assessed under the SUSI scheme, we do not know how many of these students would be eligible to receive SUSI grant funding if they were eligible to apply.

However the following will give you an indication of estimated costs of extending the SUSI scheme to these part time students taking into consideration the average fee paid by Susi to educational institutions only:

- If 10,000 of these students were deemed eligible, we would estimate a cost of €30m

- If 20,000 of these students were deemed eligible, we would estimate a cost of €60m

- If 30,000 of these students were deemed eligible, we would estimate a cost of €90m

- If all 49,658 of these students were deemed eligible for funding, we would estimate the cost to be €147m

These estimates are based on the average fee paid by SUSI to educational institutions on behalf of eligible full time students under the SUSI grant scheme. The estimates do not take into account the cost of maintenance to these students and do not include an estimation of extending funding to part time students under the free fees initiative which would be an additional cost to the exchequer.