how much money does the government shell out on us exactly?

Does anyone know (on average, or with an example of a particular course) how much the government is paying for each of us to study at TCD?

Moorsy

Depends on what course your doing. Arts (BESS) get, or at least the schools (Business) budget about 5,500 per student. Science is a bit more, not sure how much.

Bartron Prime

It's actually even more complicated than that. The money that the Government pays for students in university is divided into two: the (i) Core Grant issued to each university by the HEA and (ii) the 'grant in lieu of tutition fees' per student. The second one is the easiest to find out.

(ii) When fees were abolished, the amount charged by the universities was turned into a grant to them. Technically, the university still charges but this is paid by the Department of Education & Science on your behalf. So, the amount was frozen and is now increased (realtively) in line with inflation on an annual basis. For Irish TCD students doing at least a 4 year degree, that amount ranges from €4,900 (Bachelor in Arts) to €8, 465 (Dentistry). To find out what the exact charge for the degree is, go here. It's a PDF file but it contains all the College Charges. What's going to happen to this item is interesting. It's traditionally been included as a separate item in the Government's Budget but that's changing now.

(i) Ah the Core Grant. This is a block grant provided by the Higher Education Authority to each university and makes up approximately 80% of a university's funding. This is allocated via a system called the Recurrent Grant Allocation Model (Synopsis: Pile O' Pants). This is a system that allocates and distributes the grant based on student numbers, numbers of undergraduate & postgraduate students, subject weightings, strategic planning funding & access funding.One of the advantages of a system such as this is that (like in the UK), a Base Price is set for students below which they will not go. Alas, that has NOT been set here. So, a CS student in one university could be worth more than one in another. Smart huh?

To sum up, there's no real way of determining an average for each student. It depends on a combination. For a TCD student doing a BA it's about €11,386.37 per student. That's one third of a UK student. Yay.

manicmonoliths

Bartron Prime wrote: »

It's actually even more complicated than that. The money that the Government pays for students in university is divided into two: the (i) Core Grant issued to each university by the HEA and (ii) the 'grant in lieu of tutition fees' per student. The second one is the easiest to find out.

(ii) When fees were abolished, the amount charged by the universities was turned into a grant to them. Technically, the university still charges but this is paid by the Department of Education & Science on your behalf. So, the amount was frozen and is now increased (realtively) in line with inflation on an annual basis. For Irish TCD students doing at least a 4 year degree, that amount ranges from €4,900 (Bachelor in Arts) to €8, 465 (Dentistry). To find out what the exact charge for the degree is, go here. It's a PDF file but it contains all the College Charges. What's going to happen to this item is interesting. It's traditionally been included as a separate item in the Government's Budget but that's changing now.

(i) Ah the Core Grant. This is a block grant provided by the Higher Education Authority to each university and makes up approximately 80% of a university's funding. This is allocated via a system called the Recurrent Grant Allocation Model (Synopsis: Pile O' Pants). This is a system that allocates and distributes the grant based on student numbers, numbers of undergraduate & postgraduate students, subject weightings, strategic planning funding & access funding.One of the advantages of a system such as this is that (like in the UK), a Base Price is set for students below which they will not go. Alas, that has NOT been set here. So, a CS student in one university could be worth more than one in another. Smart huh?

To sum up, there's no real way of determining an average for each student. It depends on a combination. For a TCD student doing a BA it's about €11,386.37 per student. That's one third of a UK student. Yay.

It was only a matter of time before the Chief Nerd showed up! And I thought I had heard the end of all that RGAM funding model thing!

Well anyway, to quote you Bartley, 'We're screwed', this weighting thing could seriously mess up funds.

Might be seeing an increase in Medicine numbers next year....

Bartron Prime

Nobody expects the Chief Nerd.....

You will never hear the end of RGAM. The transition to RGAM is causing a fundamental shift in the way universities are funded. We are currently seeing the HEA imposing the UK system where resources are allocated top-down and any increase in numbers must be approved by HEFCE, the UK body. However, the Irish system is 'bottom-up' and universities can decide their target student population (see our Strategic Plan). So, the two are incompatible right? Tell that to the HEA...

As for being 'screwed', I'll put it this way: If Irish univerisites were private companies, they'd be put up for sale as 'distressed firms' or placed in administration. Nobody has any money.

The College plan is to go to the Strategic Plan's target of 11,500 students. We're currently about 600-700 below that. All Schools have been asked to see if it's feasible to reach their existing quotas, not reckless expansion.

As for Medicine, it's a deeply interesting one. It's absolutely leaking money under ARAM (virtually every Medicine course does - John Hopkins University has split off their Medical School to stem the financial impact). Non-EU students are a significant growth factor for this course but as we will be changing the entry system for Medicine natioanlly, it'll be interesting to see what happens.