Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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2639.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of introducing SUSI to students studying fully online courses and those studying micro-credentials; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33117/24]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Student Grant Scheme is a means-tested scheme. The numbers of students undertaking fully online programmes or micro-credentials who would meet the means tested criteria and other eligibility criteria for SUSI is not held by my Department and therefore I cannot provide an estimate as requested.

Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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2640.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of increasing the income threshold for the special rate of SUSI to €50,000 and removing provision setting out the requirement of receiving relief from the Department of Social Protection; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33118/24]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Student Grant Scheme is targeted at those students who are most in need of financial assistance and the Special Rate of grant is a key tool in targeting student grant assistance at the cohort of students who are most in need.

The qualifying criteria for the special rate of maintenance grant in the 2024 Student Grant Scheme are as follows:

(i) The student must qualify for the standard rate of grant (i.e. the 100% grant);

(ii) Total reckonable income in the reference year, after income disregards and Child Dependant Increase(s) are excluded, must not exceed €26,200; and

(iii) As at 31st December 2023, the reckonable income must include one of the eligible long-term social welfare payments prescribed in the Student Grant Scheme.

The special rate of grant in the Student Grant Scheme has, as a matter of long-standing policy, been targeted at applicants who are the dependents of people receiving long-term welfare payments, where the relevant eligibility criteria are met.

The report of the Action Group on Access to Third Level Education made detailed recommendations concerning the introduction of special rates of maintenance grants for disadvantaged students. The rationale for the special rate is that it is targeted at those who are "most in need", which the report identified as child dependents of people receiving long-term social welfare payments, where other necessary conditions are fulfilled.

Accordingly, to effectively target this cohort, the income threshold for the special rate of grant is strategically aligned with the highest Department of Social Protection rate, which is the maximum point of the weekly State Contributory Pension plus the maximum Qualified Adult Allowance for a person over 66 years, in order to target students from households in receipt of long term social welfare assistance effectively. The income threshold for the special rate of grant is being increased from €25,000 to €26,200 for the 2024 Scheme to keep in line with increases in the old age pension.

I have recently made additional improvements to the special rate of grant. The special rate of grant payment itself was increased as part of Budget 2024, with the rate already changing in the 2023/24 academic year. In September 2024, the special rate of grant will increase to a non-adjacent rate of €7,586 (up from €6,971) or the adjacent rate of €3,230 (up from €2,936). These grant rates have been applied from January 2024 on a pro-rata basis.

Additionally, increments for the number of dependent children in the family and the number of additional persons in the household in further or higher education were also extended in the 2023 Scheme so that they now also apply to the special rate, bringing it in line with all other rates. This change created consistency across the Scheme and provided a greater level of flexibility where a student may be working and the family income is just over the threshold or where a household is just over the limit but may have 2 children or more in college.

The eligibility criteria for student grants are reviewed annually by the Department and approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. All proposals made in relation to education expenditure, including student grants, are considered in the context of the annual Budget.

In advance of Budget 2025 this autumn, I will be publishing an options paper which will set out various possible measures to address the cost of education. I am doing this in order to facilitate public discussion on the various choices available to amend student supports. I will have regard to options on increasing the special rate income thresholds and grant rates, when making proposals in the context of budget discussions.

Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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2641.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of allowing persons over the age of 18 years to be eligible to be assessed as an independent student if they meet all other criteria in SUSI; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33120/24]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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For student grant purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as students dependent on parents or a legal guardian, or as independent mature students.

Each year a significant number of student grant applicants are assessed as either dependent students or independent students and awarded student supports on that basis.

While SUSI has statistics on dependent students who have applied for grant support, they do not capture the following:-

1. Data on how the grant would change for such applicants if they were instead assessed as independent applicants.

2. The number of potential applicants who currently do not apply but might do so should the criteria change.

Also, we must take into the consideration the number of students who will not hold an eligible payment if assessed as Independent and lose the special rate of grant which represents over circa 30% of all maintenance grant recipients.

To re-classify and fund students if they meet all other criteria, who are over 18 as Independent would represent a major policy change. As SUSI does not hold sufficient data in relation to the cost of re-classifying students as independent, we are unable to provide the projected cost requested.