Election 2024: Investment in third-level education 'should be a priority of next government'
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Having conferred almost 7,000 students graduating from University College Cork (UCC) this year, president John O'Halloran generally doesn’t use his speeches to make political statements.
“I have actually taken the opportunity to over the last few weeks,” he confesses.
He believes investment in research and innovation, improving staff-to-student ratios, and supporting students — in particular with accommodation — should be prioritised by the next Government.
“Those are the big-ticket items," he said.
“Politicians have said to me ‘there are a lot of competing issues in elections and education isn’t at the front ends of the mind of a lot of people’.
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“I can only speak for myself, but I am a first-generation graduate.
Do we take our standard of education for granted?
“I think there is a real risk in that,” he said.
“Maybe with what’s happened at the other side of the world, there’ll be a good jolt to us that education is really important, and we know that universities play a really important role in facing society’s challenges.
“There are always competing demands but certainly what we are seeing in various parts of the world is down to poor education systems.”
Funding has gone in the right direction for higher education, he believes, but it remains to be seen how the gaps will be fully bridged.
“The outgoing Government had decided that we are underfunded," he said.
"They’ve taken steps in the budget to address that, but we need to move fairly quickly and let’s see it happening now and being delivered on.
"It's [a sector-wide gap of] €307m annually and it looks at face value that it’ll be 2030 before we get to that point.”
In real terms, the funding gap means less staff, less innovation, and less investment across the sector.
UCC has faced its own recent financial strife. At the beginning of this year, it emerged that UCC had been forced to review its capital spending after recording an €11.2m deficit.
The university embarked on a cost-cutting programme, Project Alpha, without which the deficit could have spiraled to more than €23m.
Professor O’Halloran said: “Because we’re public bodies, we have to work within our budgets so as soon as anyone trips over that, including us, that impacts immediately on a whole range of things.
"We want staff-student ratios to be the best,” he added.
"In the OECD, the average is 14:1. In Ireland, it's 22:1. And in UCC we’re just at about 20.
"In real terms, if we don’t invest we won’t get the quality or the experience for students.
"Secondly, the equipment in universities right now, 50% of research equipment is more than 15 years old. This is how it manifests — there's no investment in infrastructure, no investment in strategy or in terms of staff-student ratios.
"We’re working hard to keep the quality up and we have all the accreditation, so I am happy that the quality is being maintained but we’re focusing absolutely on teaching and learning, student experience, and research.
"Everything else is secondary, including community, because that’s the risk. We have to deliver the core.”
Do we run the risk of a third-level education becoming more unattainable?
“There is an increased risk," says Prof O'Halloran. "Government, to be fair, has put some good steps in place. About 20% of our students come from non-traditional pathways, and that’s right actually.
"I think we do run the risk that if we keep lifting the bar too high in costs of living — and accommodation is part of that — that it will become much more difficult for people.”
The university works to keep its own accommodation at a low price on the market, he added.
“We just have to keep at it, supporting our students and us will help to keep those costs down.”
Amid talk that the Department of Further and Higher Education and Research could be scrapped to make way for a Department of Infrastructure, Professor O’Halloran believes the relatively newly formed entity has been good for the sector.
"We know the economic and social impact of our institutions. Education, for all of us, has really been improved because of higher education.
"Having a minister there supporting that at the cabinet is really critical, because there are really important issues at primary and second level as well.”
The setup of Research Ireland was a really welcome step, he believes.
“I’d like to see more of a focus on research and innovation though I haven’t seen that articulated as much as I’d like to see it.
"We're laggards in Europe in terms of research and innovation and the PhD stipend is the other part of that then, funding that’s available for PhD students.
"That's currently €22,000 from state funded bodies, that’ll go up to €25,000 in January next year.
"If we are interested in the knowledge economy, we have to invest and in our people, and our PhD students are really important in that.”
Alma Krause is currently in the final year of her degree at MTU, studying Home Economics and Business on the campus in Bishopstown, Cork City.
From Mayfield on the Northside of Cork City, Alma, like many students, relies heavily on public transport to get her to and from lectures every day.
Transport and access are major issues for students, she believes.
“Transport availability for buses, the routes they take, how long they take — a lot of it comes back to accessibility to third-level education.”
Poor service means a 25-minute car drive from her home to the campus takes an hour and 45 minutes each morning.
“It’s awful," she said.
“I take the 208 and the 205. It's really inconsistent and I have to leave at 7am to make sure I’m in college for 8:45am.
"They are really bad and Cork just lost hundreds of buses so we really feel that as students.”
She believes she is “lucky enough” to live at home but knows all too well the abysmal accommodation options that students face.
“It shouldn’t be digs. Digs are not acceptable. You don’t have your own space, you’re not even protected by law. You’re not entitled to anything.
“It’s extremely expensive. You are talking at least €1,000 a month for accommodation alone. That’s not including bills, or bins, or parking.”
As a result, most students are now also working to cover the cost of their education.
“Everybody works. There’s no one who doesn’t work on my course and there are 32 of us,” Alma said.
“We’re all working part-time but its always an awful job, working very late hours. I work in a pub, and I finish most nights at 3am in the morning.
"When Monday morning comes around and all weekend you got barely any sleep, something is bound to give at a certain stage.”
Working unsustainable hours has its consequences.
“People get sick all the time. The counselling services and the medical services on campus are great but there’s just not enough staff. There’s just not enough availability. We’re lucky in the Bishopstown campus, but if you are at a more remote campus, its harder again.
"You make sure you turn up and you do your work but it's a lot to juggle, especially if you are in a practical field where you can’t miss any classes.”
For the next government, tackling student accommodation is key, she believes.
“It's not fair that campuses can just charge whatever they want.
"It should be capped, and students should be protected, especially if you are a long-distance student.
"You should be given something for your fuel — even if it's €100, it would make a difference.”
Ireland’s third-level sector has a lot to be proud of.
In the space of a few short decades, we built one of the highest third-level participation rates in the world.
Every year, thousands of international students choose to study here thanks to our affordable world-class courses, our progressiveness and, it goes without saying, the reputation of our nightlife.
In a bid to get more people in the doors of colleges, there are a wide range of grants and access pathways available for students.
Perhaps most importantly, we’ve so far staved off the introduction of a student loan system, avoiding a culture of swamping new grads in eyewatering, all-consuming debt at the starting line of their careers like their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
The third-level sector in Ireland faces major challenges.
There is a huge €307m gap in annual funding to universities, and investment to research isn’t where it needs to be to position Ireland competitively.
Many labs have outdated equipment, which makes it more difficult for researchers to compete internationally, and we need to be upskilling many more apprentices in order to meet housing and climate targets.
In an election cycle, any one of these issues could be dissected, raked over, and debated.
Certainly, there are many political promises that can be made about the sector but I’m choosing to focus here on one aspect of the college experience that has dramatically changed in the four short years since the onset of covid, and one difficult for any political party to truly cut to the heart of — the unsustainable increases to the cost of attaining a third-level education.
Sometimes, it’s all too easy for onlookers to accept that being a ‘broke’ student is just part and parcel of the traditional college experience.
In reality, the situation faced by many students in 2024 goes far beyond your fond memories of surviving off noodles for dinner every night and working in bars at the weekend to make do.
Thanks to the housing crisis and inflation, recent increases to student grants, or cuts to fees, have been far outpaced.
More students have no choice but to work full-time hours while studying, or to commute long distances daily, or to agree to unsafe, overpriced or far away accommodation, and place themselves in a precarious financial situation as a result.
When colleges pushed to get students back on campus after lockdown, they often cited the on-campus experience and how students were missing out on a key aspect of studying.
How much of the campus do the students stuck on the train for hours every day get to experience?
How engaged can you be when you are one of the 25% of students attending lectures hungry, as found by UCC Students’ Union in a survey it released ahead of the new term this year.
A quarter of the 3,000-odd students taking part in the survey said their housing costs increased by more than €40 a week in the last year, meaning renting over the course of an academic year now costs them €1,200 more.
By all metrics, this is staggering and completely unsustainable.
Those who can, will get help from mum and dad.
They may leave college with a sour taste in their mouths, as the markers of young adulthood seem stretched even further beyond their reach.
They may have missed out on key college experiences, such as an Erasmus year abroad or a fantastic but unpaid co-op experience, but they will make it through, nonetheless.
The sad part in all of this is that there will be students who cannot make it work, despite sacrifice and struggle because of their finances.
Their voices will be missing from campus protests because they are simply not there anymore, having dropped out, or relocated.
Some careers, like medicine, will become even more unattainable to students from a particular background.
As summarised by Declan Jordan from the Cork University Business School: “When a talented student from a poorer family is unable to go to college because they lack the resources, it isn’t just that student who loses. We all do.”