Grants for online degree/open university

Ryanc154

Hi

I am sorry if this has been asked before but I have done a bit of searching on google and can not find a definite answer.

I am mad to get into education, just worried about affording it, I know you can get a grant for fees or part of your fees if you are in a brick and mortar college. I cant find a definite answer about whether thats possible with an online course or a course with open university. Does anyone here have any personal experience here and could advise me?

Ideally I would like to leave work and go to a proper college but I guessing thats not really doable without spending 9 months on the dole to get BTEA so im thinking open university is my best bet.

Thanks in advance for your help

Moonbeam

There is no funding available for people working .

Ryanc154

Moonbeam wrote: »

There is no funding available for people working .

Has this changed recently?.. like I said I am not sure about online courses but in the case of a person actually attending college, I was considering it last year when I was unsure how much longer I had in my job. I went through the grant process for fees and they only wanted to know last years earnings.. and as I only made not much more than 21K I was awarded the grant, well would have been awarded if I had went to college in the end

RacoonQueen

You can get tax back for fees paid if working full time. But if you're working full time and studying part time there is no support available in the form of grants etc you can only get the grant if you are taking up full time education.

We could really do with a decent student loans system here. I study with the open university and they have their own loans system that Irish students can avail of. You end up paying back about 300 a month though for either 6 months (for 30 credit modules) or 12 months (if doing 60 credits)...or more if you're doing the full 120 credits in one year.

Ryanc154

RacoonQueen wrote: »

You can get tax back for fees paid if working full time. But if you're working full time and studying part time there is no support available in the form of grants etc you can only get the grant if you are taking up full time education.

We could really do with a decent student loans system here. I study with the open university and they have their own loans system that Irish students can avail of. You end up paying back about 300 a month though for either 6 months (for 30 credit modules) or 12 months (if doing 60 credits)...or more if you're doing the full 120 credits in one year.

Jesus 300 a month isnt cheap either. Seems like there is no way of getting a degree without a massive sacrifice financially

Anongeneric

Check out springboardcourses.ie
as far as I am aware it's available to people working now also

RacoonQueen

Ryanc154 wrote: »

Jesus 300 a month isnt cheap either. Seems like there is no way of getting a degree without a massive sacrifice financially

Yep, works out quite expensive to do it as distance learning...but for what I'm doing (computing) the yearly tuition fee to do it part time in a college in Ireland isn't that much less. Thing with Open University also is that all your learning materials (books etc) are included in your tuition fee so there is no extra expense for buying books which you may have to do in another college.

Pity there is no support for people working full time, paying tax who are trying to further their education and career so they can earn more and pay more tax

There's often rumblings from politicians when they're looking for votes for supporting part time study. Alas...