Athlone students hit by budget "triple whammy"

Athlone IT's main student representative has blasted Monday's budget cuts as a "triple whammy" for students which will force many to leave third-level education altogether and go on the dole. Louise Kane, AIT Student Union President was reacting to the news of the hike in the college registration fee by €250, which brings it up to a total of €2,250, while student maintenance grants are down by 3% and grants for post-graduate courses will be scaled back altogether. "Fees are here by the back door. It's a huge fear now that the €250 registration charge could be duplicated next year and every year until 2015, something which would bring the registration fee to €3,000. Originally this was a student services charge which went directly to the college services but now, with any rise the college don't see any of it and their core grant is down," she complained. Changes to the registration fees were expected, the Longford native said, but students were not anticipating a hit on three different scales. Ms Kane stated many students will have to look seriously at their personal budgets to see if they can afford to stay on in college now and she expects that many will be forced to depart third-level education altogether as they cannot get a loan or a part-time job to cover the increased costs. Similarly, there will be a big reduction in people going to do post-graduate courses she believes due to ending of grants to that sector, a pessimistic state of affairs given all of the Government talk about the importance of research and development getting us out of the economic difficulties we find ourselves in. "That just won't happen because those students just won't be there," she said. "It seems to me that there are three stark choices for young people at the moment, go to college if you can, emigrate or go on the dole," she stated firmly. "The price of some post-graduate fees and grants come to €8,000 and someone on the dole will cost more than €10,000 a year so it doesn't make sense what they are doing," she concluded.