Paying fees as a non-EU Citizen even though you flipping well are one

purplepolkadot

Hi all,

My brother (Irish born, Irish citizen) did a MA in Modern Irish History about two years ago. He was living and working in S.Korea, he came home to do the masters and get married.
As he’d been living outside of the EU for 3 out of the previous 5 years the fees office required him to pay fees as a Non-EU citizen. Even though when he came home he went through EU passport control, and could vote, marry, drive and pay taxes as an Irish citizen from the day he came home.

He paid €21,600
Cost of course to non-EU citizens in this year’s TCD calendar: ~€11,500
Cost of course to EU citizens, at time he did it and in this year’s calendar: ~€6k

If anyone has experience of overpayment of fees or anything similar could you comment or PM me please? I’m not sure how to approach this in TCD

Anita Blow

Sounds right? 2 year degree at €11,500 per year.
Requirement as far as I know is that you have to have lived in the EU for 3 of the past 5 years

munchkin_utd

purplepolkadot wrote: »

If anyone has experience of overpayment of fees or anything similar could you comment or PM me please? I’m not sure how to approach this in TCD

"Overpayment" though is your interpretation of the rules.

If such a rule wasnt in place, then literally millions of Irish/ British/ other EU passport holders who have never previously set foot in the country nor Europe (thinking of Aussie/ Us/ NZ/ Canadian in particular ) could avail of Irish university education.

NOW......
considering that college in the US costs on average 9000 Dollars a year (up to 40k a year for better colleges), enrolling in an Irish uni for a few hundred a year would be a fantastic deal for the grand sons/ daughters of the worldwide Irish(/UK/etc etc) Diaspora!!

Your brother got the short end of the stick, but nevertheless can/could get "normal" college fees should he be inclined to wait till the 3 years residency has elapsed.

blubloblu

It's "EU fees", not "EU citizen fees"

Gae

purplepolkadot wrote: »

If anyone has experience of overpayment of fees or anything similar could you comment or PM me please? I’m not sure how to approach this in TCD

I don't know what you want to approach them about. That's the rule - you need to live in the EU for 3 out of the previous 5 years to be eligible for the EU fees. Your brother didn't meet the criteria, so he has to pay the full fees. The rules, as they are, are being implemented correctly.

Anyway, this isn't a decision TCD made, it's the same for every college in Ireland. If you want to complain about the rule, I believe it's the HEA you should contact. But your brother's case is closed before it's even open.

blucey

blubloblu wrote: »

It's "EU fees", not "EU citizen fees"

Exactly. It's a residency not a citizenship issue. Which causes some issues for eg diplomats....

kkumk

Something similar happened to me, I have a dual American-Irish citizenship and was originally charged non EU fees (although I have lived in Ireland for the past 20 years). In the end I had to get a letter from my secondary school saying I studied there and did my Leaving Cert etc, however that was for undergrad so I'm not sure if it would be different because he did an MA.

Ravelleman

What approach are you talking about? If the fees have been paid and the masters completed, there's surely no legal recourse for complaint.

purplepolkadot

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I know he wasn't living in the EU for a while, but it's really been pissing off my dad, so I was wondering if there was anything we could do about it, as I do find it unusual that you can lose your status (temporarily).
Very good point about all the ex-pats that would come here for cheap fees though...

Gae

He didn't lose his status as an EU-citizen. As pointed out above, the fees are not related to you being a citizen, they're related to you being resident in the EU for 3 out of the previous 5 years, which your brother was not. I honestly don't know what you expect to get out of this? They're not going to turn around and say "ah ok, sure we'll give him EU-fees even though he's not entitled to them".

It's also worth pointing out that this isn't just a matter of how much Trinity charged him, but it also relates to how much state funding Trinity received for his enrollment, which is less than for the students who were entitled to EU-fees. Colleges get a certain amount of funding for every student enrolled, which is less (or even zero? I'm not sure) for students who fall into the non-EU category. Even if Trinity wanted to only charge EU-fees, they would have a funding shortfall for that enrollment. This is why non-EU fees are higher.

EDIT: missed a word

purplepolkadot

Apologies for confusing my residency/citizenship in my original post, I made the original post as my Da is complaining anyway and I wanted to see if I could point him in the right direction, fruitless as his efforts will be.

And Gae - thanks for pointing out what had been pointed out already after I'd posted to say thanks for all the replies because I'd gotten the answers I was after.
And for pointing out that it had been pointed out before.

Gae

Thanks for finally grasping it.

purplepolkadot

Zing.
I had grasped it in the previous posts, that's why I sent thanks for the replies.