Think this is excellent. The reality is that third-level is a default progression for 70-80% of students, so it should be more-or-less free, the same as the other levels of education.
Great news!
Is this their strategy to get young people to vote for them and join the party though, all mouth and no trousers. Get it done and don’t spend months talking about it
Yet we keep hearing reports that we’re over-subscribed at university level, and should be encouraging more school-leavers into trades instead. We’re already beginning to see a shortage of skilled tradespeople now, not just here but in Europe in general.
Raise apprenticeship wages
Honestly, fees are feck all when it comes to college cost. Figure out how to make accommodation cheaper or all the work on making college accessible to all social classes will be undone.
I nearly fainted upon seeing that Harris was proposing something helpful
There needs to be something for apprenticeships aswell, huge skill shortage in the country yet hearing sweet fuck all about how they are going to help reduce it
Political kite flying.
Don’t be so stupid as to fall for this one. If FG/FF really wanted to reform 3rd level educational fees, they would have done it before now. It’s no coincidence that they announce this with an election in sight.
I remember this being used by the UK government back in the early 2000’s.
Learned tactics from their buddies in Westminster.
I hope the public reaction is strong and positive enough to push this forward.
It’s not just about the social value of education, it’s about the quality of the education that people receive.
I was university faculty when fees were introduced for postgrads and I saw the standards fall, as customer/product dynamics set in.
We have super low unemployment in the country, so low that we have to have some immigration to fill jobs, that is because of how accessible the education system is. Making it more accessible is just more of the good really. I’ll never complain about having a great education system in the country and for a low cost to students.
Shouldn’t there be a push for apprenticeships, too? Education costs far too much, of course, but apprenticeships are terrific career paths and we’re sorely lacking in that department.
Controversial take: cutting university fees is regressive.
The cost of university must be born by someone, either the students (in full, or in part as we’ve done) or the general public.
University graduates are, on average, higher earners and so should bear more of the burden of the costs of education.
To make university free is to place a greater burden of its costs upon lower income earners who also didn’t directly benefit from it.
That said, there must be better supports for people who fall outside the SUSI bracket.
Controversial opinion but I don’t think half the people going to college should be there in the first place.
The value of university is being diluted all the time and it’s never been so easy to learn a skill for free on the Internet
Only r/ireland could bitch and moan about reduced costs of third-level education having demanded reduced costs of third-level education for years.
If fees could’ve been reduced why have they been up? Who is taking the excess fees?
They need to reinvest in universities. Universities have introduced fees since the government has been slashing contributions to them for over 15 years. It is also why our universities have slide down the ranks by lots of places each year.
Great idea, so students can be homeless but at least they can study cheap
Student fees are so low and the amount of people who qualify for grants that pay the fees is huge. Half my course in Uni didn’t pay fees. Cutting student fees is just virtue signalling nonsense. As it is now, the people can can afford it pay, and the people who can’t dont. And now we’re switching to no one paying?
At least the fee made sure that people signing up for the course actually wanted to do it. Now everyone can sign on and drop out in the first semester
I honestly think the more people that go to college the worse the standard becomes
Gotta get those gen z votes
They’ll relent on their malicious fees by like 1%, great.
I can just imagine all the Fine Gael deviants thinking about how generous this is.
I love how at the end of the article they can’t help but mention Ukraine. Are they suggesting these fees that have been constantly protested weren’t a problem until this Ukrainian potential came up?
They really are irredeemable meritless cunts.
SUSI as a whole needs to be reviewed. I’m a 25 year old mature student who didn’t qualify for it because I still live at home, which means they took both mine and my parents’ incomes into account. Would the same be applied to a 50 year old living at home still? Probably.
25 comments
Think this is excellent. The reality is that third-level is a default progression for 70-80% of students, so it should be more-or-less free, the same as the other levels of education.
Great news!
Is this their strategy to get young people to vote for them and join the party though, all mouth and no trousers. Get it done and don’t spend months talking about it
Yet we keep hearing reports that we’re over-subscribed at university level, and should be encouraging more school-leavers into trades instead. We’re already beginning to see a shortage of skilled tradespeople now, not just here but in Europe in general.
Raise apprenticeship wages
Honestly, fees are feck all when it comes to college cost. Figure out how to make accommodation cheaper or all the work on making college accessible to all social classes will be undone.
I nearly fainted upon seeing that Harris was proposing something helpful
There needs to be something for apprenticeships aswell, huge skill shortage in the country yet hearing sweet fuck all about how they are going to help reduce it
Political kite flying.
Don’t be so stupid as to fall for this one. If FG/FF really wanted to reform 3rd level educational fees, they would have done it before now. It’s no coincidence that they announce this with an election in sight.
I remember this being used by the UK government back in the early 2000’s.
[https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-students-have-been-misled-and-lied-to-for-20-years](https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-students-have-been-misled-and-lied-to-for-20-years)
Learned tactics from their buddies in Westminster.
I hope the public reaction is strong and positive enough to push this forward.
It’s not just about the social value of education, it’s about the quality of the education that people receive.
I was university faculty when fees were introduced for postgrads and I saw the standards fall, as customer/product dynamics set in.
We have super low unemployment in the country, so low that we have to have some immigration to fill jobs, that is because of how accessible the education system is. Making it more accessible is just more of the good really. I’ll never complain about having a great education system in the country and for a low cost to students.
Shouldn’t there be a push for apprenticeships, too? Education costs far too much, of course, but apprenticeships are terrific career paths and we’re sorely lacking in that department.
Controversial take: cutting university fees is regressive.
The cost of university must be born by someone, either the students (in full, or in part as we’ve done) or the general public.
University graduates are, on average, higher earners and so should bear more of the burden of the costs of education.
To make university free is to place a greater burden of its costs upon lower income earners who also didn’t directly benefit from it.
That said, there must be better supports for people who fall outside the SUSI bracket.
Controversial opinion but I don’t think half the people going to college should be there in the first place.
The value of university is being diluted all the time and it’s never been so easy to learn a skill for free on the Internet
Only r/ireland could bitch and moan about reduced costs of third-level education having demanded reduced costs of third-level education for years.
If fees could’ve been reduced why have they been up? Who is taking the excess fees?
They need to reinvest in universities. Universities have introduced fees since the government has been slashing contributions to them for over 15 years. It is also why our universities have slide down the ranks by lots of places each year.
Great idea, so students can be homeless but at least they can study cheap
Student fees are so low and the amount of people who qualify for grants that pay the fees is huge. Half my course in Uni didn’t pay fees. Cutting student fees is just virtue signalling nonsense. As it is now, the people can can afford it pay, and the people who can’t dont. And now we’re switching to no one paying?
At least the fee made sure that people signing up for the course actually wanted to do it. Now everyone can sign on and drop out in the first semester
I honestly think the more people that go to college the worse the standard becomes
Gotta get those gen z votes
They’ll relent on their malicious fees by like 1%, great.
I can just imagine all the Fine Gael deviants thinking about how generous this is.
I love how at the end of the article they can’t help but mention Ukraine. Are they suggesting these fees that have been constantly protested weren’t a problem until this Ukrainian potential came up?
They really are irredeemable meritless cunts.
SUSI as a whole needs to be reviewed. I’m a 25 year old mature student who didn’t qualify for it because I still live at home, which means they took both mine and my parents’ incomes into account. Would the same be applied to a 50 year old living at home still? Probably.