Tuition fees … again
Today’s Irish Times brings us the news that the Minister for Education and Science is ‘personally backing’ the reintroduction of fees, and that the timescale for this may be shorter than some commentators had assumed. The Irish Times report says that he will bring the matter to a cabinet meeting within six months.
My first response would be to say that I am impressed that the Minister is continuing to address the issue. His original announcement brought some strong opposition, and his perseverance is a good sign. Whatever the solution may be to the issues facing the sector, they will be found only if there is a degree of political courage here, and the Minister is showing a good deal of that. This is a good sign.
I am also pleased that the Minister is looking at different models, and that he is considering both the impact on the disadvantaged, and at the Australian loan model. All that is good.
My only quibble: the Minister is continuing to talk about millionaires, thereby perhaps suggesting that he is envisaging a framework with a very high income threshold. This would be very hard to administer and would yield very little in revenues.
But for now, this is a good news story, if it is followed through well.
Explore posts in the same categories: higher education, universityTags: Batt O'Keeffe, tuition fees, universities
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University Blog 
September 10, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Agreed. I think it’s a no-brainer that fees will come back. But, I also find it disingenuous that a government minister is pointing to a Bank of Ireland source as a definition of millionaire or any other category of “wealth” (based on what? the value of initial mortgages they provided in the first place?) when the dept of finance/revenue/etc could determine who is earning what as basis for policy-making. A red herring.