“With the help of the Irish Times today, we now know what options have been put to the cabinet by the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe TD, for student contributions to the cost of higher education. We also know that the Minister favours the option of student loans, under which all students will be able to enter third level education without any up-front payments, but will become liable to repay some of the cost once their annual income exceeds a minimum threshold. The sum to be repaid is likely to be somewhere between €20,000 and €30,000. I will say that I am not against this plan in broad terms, but there are many matters of both principle and detail that will need to be addressed before it can be activated …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 11 July]