A major shake-up in third-level maintenance grant rules will allow students qualify for State financial support to pay their way through college on the basis of their own, rather than their parents', income.
However, proof will be required to establish that a student is financially independent and not claiming a grant while, for instance, their parents pay the rent.
This measure is part of the new Student Support Bill, which will finally bring some efficiency into the Irish higher education grants system, and which also outlines penalties of imprisonment and heavy fines for students who claim grants dishonestly.
Read more about the financial independence rules here.
4 comments:
"finally bring efficiency" - we dont know that till its tested!
"will finally bring some efficiency" - emphasise some!
The context in which I say thus is that the new bill "provides for a single statutory basis for all student grants to replace four different schemes currently operated by local authorities and vocational education committees. The VECs will be given sole responsibility for administering student maintenance grants, halving the number of awarding authorities from 66 to 33".
Surely we should expect "some" efficiency from these changes, in a tautological sense?
no!!!
depends on the costs of implementing the reform, the competencies of the new bodies etc.,
for example if we had 66 brilliant authorities and then streamlined it so that the worst 33 took over the others then that wouldnt bring efficiency gains (not suggesting that is happening here). Also, what are the cost implications. Will administration costs go up or down or stay the same?
there is also a Hawthorne effect with these type of reforms whereby streamlining is accompanied by, for example, setting up an efficient computer system. then, ex post, the increased efficiency gains get attributed to the streamlining when it was actually the computer system that need fixing.
i agree that, in this case, the reform could potentially have efficiency gains but this a much weaker statement than the original one. my point is that putting some testable restrictions around some of these reforms would be beneficial.
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