Bring back student fees, OECD tells Ireland

Irish students should bear some of the costs of their higher education and fees should be re-introduced, an OECD Review of Higher Education Policy in Ireland recommended in Dublin last month.

Tuition fees were abolished in the Irish Republic in 1996.

The review recommended that universities be allowed to set fees, and that there be means-tested student support and grants to assist low-income or special-needs students.

"We do not believe that with the economic and fiscal realities facing Ireland it will be possible to develop the globally competitive tertiary education system and research capability that it seeks by relying on state funding alone," the OECD said in the review.

A summary of the OECD Review's arguments:

• Ireland needs to invest more in tertiary education for economic and social reasons but will find it increasingly difficult to do so because of the competing claims from other parts of the education system, as well as other parts of the public sector of the economy.
• Irish tertiary education institutions are over-dependent on public funding; less reliance on the state would make them more competitive.
• The free-fees policy has not had the effects that were hoped for in improving participation from students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• The free-fees policy is inequitable because it provides substantial subsidies to students whose families could well afford to pay tuition fees. (An estimated 20 percent of students enrolled in universities and receiving the benefit of free fees are from families with incomes in excess of €70,000 per annum).
• The rate of return to higher education, both now and predicted for the future, fully justifies students bearing a share of the cost of their education.

Though student fees are supported by the Education Minister, Noel Dempsey, the Times Higher Education Supplement has reported that the Irish government looks set to ignore the recommendations for now.

More information on the OECD review is at this web page.

A Guardian backgrounder, from earlier this year, on funding in the Irish tertiary sector is at this web page.