Funding Our Future: The National Preferendum
Written by Eoghan Healy
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01 May 2012
'Funding our future: The national Preferendum'
You decide.
This year, the issue of funding for third level education has once again been at the forefront of student issues. UCCSU’s current position is that the third level sector should be fully funded by the state via taxation.
USI’s current policy is that the Exchequer (i.e. the taxpayer) should bear the entire cost of tuition fees for Irish/EU students through progressive taxation. This policy has been reaffirmed by votes at USI Congress on a number of occasions, most recently in 2009. In light of the fact that the Student Contribution will be €2,250 in September 2012 and the Minister’s signal that it’s the Government’s intention to increase the contribution to €3,000 by 2015, USI has decided to consult the membership to determine if its current funding policy is the most appropriate policy to achieve equity of access.
Each year delegates from USI member Students’ Unions across the island gather for Congress to elect the USI sabbatical officers and to set USI’s policies. UCC sends 19 voting delegates to this conference, correlating to the number of students in the college.
The UCC delegation requested that the ‘Preferendum’ be referred back to a later date to allow further consultation. The result of this being that a Special Congress has been called for the 23rd of May.
To make the process as democratic as possible, the votes of the UCCSU delegation will be determined by the votes of a quorate online ballot taken from the 13th of May till the 20th of May. Please log onto www.usivote.com for details on the options available and how to vote. We have done up a comprehensive document of the options available to you here so make sure to read it before voting.
All 19 of UCCSU's votes will be the same, in order to have maximum impact, and determined by the result of the ballot. Your vote will determine USI's fees policy – make sure to keep checking www.collegeroad.ie, facebook and twitter for updates on the campaign.
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Graduate Tax
If a graduate tax were introduced in Ireland, students would not pay any fees upfront but would repay the government through a new tax levied only against graduates.
A graduate tax could be implemented in two ways. Firstly, a graduate would repay an additional rate of tax for their entire working life, which could mean repaying much more than the cost. Alternatively a system could be implemented where a graduate would be asked to repay for a set period of time perhaps 15 years or until such as they have repaid a certain percentage of the cost of their course.
In a graduate tax model similar to the second option the National Union of Students in the UK calculated a teacher would repay approx £7 per week.
Pros
● Education is accessible as it is free at the point of entry and there is no upfront cost.
● Additional resources may become available for maintenance grants as the state no longer needs to cover the student fee contribution.
● Additional revenue may be available to colleges and/or the Exchequer to invest in additional facilities or additional supports to students.
● Repayments can be income contingent and interest free
● Graduates have no personal debt. This resolves the issue of students avoiding Higher Education as they are debt adverse and also the issue of graduates being unable to obtain mortgages, car loans etc. due to personal debt burden.
● Repayments are based on the graduate’s earnings rather than their parents as is the case under the current means test.
● Means testing can be applied
Cons
● Graduates may emigrate to avoid repayments.
● Significant administrative and implementation cost
● Additional revenue is collected through general taxation and may not be spent on education.
● Graduate tax could involve rolling Exchequer borrowings and debt servicing costs which may not be possible in the current climate.
● There may be a significant time lag before any additional funding is available to colleges as graduates must graduate and begin earning before repaying.
● In some graduate tax models graduates repay for life and thus repay the cost of their programme many times over however; this may be negated by introducing a maximum length of payment and/or maximum repayment amount.
