This year's third level entrants to pay fees next year?

Sad Professor

I saw this feature about the return of fees in the Sunday Business Post today. While O'Keefe mooted the idea back in February that this year's entrants would have to pay fees for subsequent years of their course, I had hoped the idea had been dropped - but it seems not.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education and Science last week confirmed that no firm decision had been made on the date for the introduction of fees. However, it was ‘‘not [the minister’s] intention to recommend the introduction of a new form of student contribution before 2010’’.

She said: ‘‘In the event that it is decided to introduce a form of student contribution from a future point, such arrangements would also apply, from that time, to those students who would have entered higher education this year, that is 2009.”

Fine Gael’s education spokesman Brian Hayes was among the objectors to this scheme, saying that students going to college this year should not be part of the scheme.

‘‘You cannot pull the rug from under the feet of people who have entered college on the basis of one set of rules. You do not change the rules mid-term, even if the government says it’s been well flagged,” he said. Already those entering college this year, and those already enrolled on a course, will see an increase in their annual registration charges, from €900 to €1,500.

Full article here.

I think this is ridiculous. The Batt-man is happy for students who entered last year and are now going into their 2nd year to continue to get free fees for the remainder of their course, but he's going to screw the people entering this year despite the fact that free fees is still in place. The government doesn't even have legislation prepared yet for the return of fees. And O'Keefe has been dithering on the details all year so we don't even know for certain yet what form they will take.

the_wheel_turns

Sad Professor wrote: »

I saw this feature about the return of fees in the Sunday Business Post today. While O'Keefe mooted the idea back in February that this year's entrants would have to pay fees for subsequent years of their course, I had hoped the idea had been dropped - but it seems not.

I'm not sure this would even be legal...

I mean, if you've entered the 'Free Fees' initiative for a year, and are told to pay for the rest of your degree, what's the point of it? It'd just be a waste of taxpayer's money and I doubt he'd be allowed to get away with it.

Plus, on the legal level, Fianna Fáil formed their current coalition government under a Programme for Government which explicitly took the possible re-introduction of college fees off the table.

Sad Professor

The Programme for Government is being re-negotiated though and the Greens have expressed support for the return of fees. They've made perfectly clear that they won't cross their Fianna Fail masters.

But I agree, it does seem a bit legally dubious to pull the free fees arrangement from students mid-stream. Here's an article from March in which the SUs said they would challenge such a move:

However, this year's Leaving Cert students will also be affected. [O'Keefe] says they will not be exempt and will be required to pay a contribution from next year onwards.

But top legal advice obtained by the Union of Students in Ireland says charging up to 40,000 students who enrol in September would be illegal.

"The advice states clearly that students who have already applied for and accepted a place this coming September are deemed to be doing so under the existing free-fees policy" said USI president Shane Kelly. "We will take legal action if necessary to ensure that students enrolling in September will not be penalised."

This would take the form of an injunction or, if necessary, a test case in the courts next year.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/return-of-thirdlevel-fees-to-face-legal-challenge-1681331.html

I don't put a lot of weight in what the student unions say, however.

the_wheel_turns

Absolutely.

I find it difficult to understand why they'd even try to do that.

An Bord Snip didn't mention the reintroduction of college fees. If they go ahead with them - there'll be hundreds of thousands squandered in legal fees, without any probable guarantee they'll even be allowed to do it.

Pointless. A word that comes to mind so often when talking about the current government.:cool:

PrinceMax

the_wheel_turns wrote: »

Absolutely.

I find it difficult to understand why they'd even try to do that.

An Bord Snip didn't mention the reintroduction of college fees. If they go ahead with them - there'll be hundreds of thousands squandered in legal fees, without any probable guarantee they'll even be allowed to do it.

Pointless. A word that comes to mind so often when talking about the current government.:cool:

An Bord Snip didn't mention the reintroduction of fees because it wasn't it's job. It's job was to propose cuts not taxes or charges.

Sad Professor

James McDermott, a barrister, weighed in on the legality of this in today's SBP. Full article here.

The important bit:

So what does all this mean for the Leaving Certificate class of 2009? Well, the good news is that O’Keeffe’s delay in finalising his plans means that the current regime of free fees is likely to remain in place for at least the first year of their studies. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the minister from imposing a charge on these students for years two to four of their studies, but O’Keeffe will be aware that previous attempts to change the funding regime for students middegree has proved to be an unhappy experience.

Indeed, any attempt to make such an alteration is likely to be the subject of a legal challenge by the Union of Students of Ireland on the basis that students who enrolled for a four-year degree in an era of free fees have a legitimate expectation that this funding regime would remain unaltered for the duration of their studies.

The public law doctrine of legitimate expectation has been teased out by the Irish courts in a number of cases, two of which involved the education sector. In the Power case (2006), a mature student who had returned to full-time education under a scheme that enabled him to continue to receive his social welfare payments while in college successfully challenged a subsequent attempt by the minister for social, community and family affairs to discontinue those payments during the summer holidays. A similar result was reached in the Abrahamson case (1996) where a group of law students who had enrolled in particular degree courses so as to qualify for exemptions from the entrance exams of the Law Society of Ireland successfully challenged an attempt by the society to remove the exemptions prior to their graduation.

However, both Power and Abrahmson involved challenges being brought by students already in the third-level system when the change was proposed. It is unlikely that Wednesday’s Leaving Certificate graduates would be able to successfully make the argument that they had a legitimate expectation that fees would not be introduced for the duration of their studies, if O’Keeffe is sensible enough to announce his plans in relation to the re-introduction of third-level fees in advance of the first round of CAO offers being sent out this week. This would mean that the next generation of our nation’s undergraduates understand precisely what they are signing up for prior to accepting their college places.