{"id":462,"date":"2012-08-09T15:35:13","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/student-loan-scheme-option-no-solution-deputy-sean-crowe\/"},"modified":"2012-08-09T15:35:13","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T15:35:13","slug":"student-loan-scheme-option-no-solution-deputy-sean-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/student-loan-scheme-option-no-solution-deputy-sean-crowe\/","title":{"rendered":"Student loan scheme option no solution \u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Student loan scheme option\u00a0no solution\u00a0\u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe, TD, believes the new government-backed loan scheme for post-graduate students that was introduced this week by Bank of Ireland will further perpetuate a two-tier college system.<\/span> DescribIing the scheme as\u00a0giving\u00a0most\u00a0\u00a0students whose families\u00a0who are on a low or middle income\u00a0\u00a0a….. \u00a0swim,sink \u00a0or drop out of the entire race\u00a0option.<\/p>\n

Deputy Crowe was responding to yesterday\u2019s launch by <\/span>Bank of Ireland<\/span><\/a> of a post-graduate student loan scheme that has been developed in conjunction with the <\/span>Department of Education and Skills<\/span><\/a> (DES) and the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).<\/span><\/p>\n

It will allow the bank to pay the tuition fees of participating students for the duration of their studies. Repayments under the scheme will be interest-only until three months after the student graduates, with capital repayments thereafter at a variable annual interest rate of 10.8 per cent<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year 3,600 post-graduate students pursuing a diploma, masters or PhD qualified for a maintenance grant and free fees that were worth up to \u20ac6,000 each per year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: <\/span>\u201cCuts announced in this year\u2019s budget removed the postgraduate maintenance grant making it impossible for thousands of Irish students to attain a postgraduate qualification. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are well founded fears that the loan scheme announced by Bank of Ireland, which has the support of Minister Quinn and the Department of Education and Skills (DES), <\/span>will mostly benefit students who are already financially secure. It is extremely likely that anyone with a poor credit rating or who\u00a0never had\u00a0a bank account may will be prevented from securing a loan and therefore excluded from pursuing their studies particularly\u00a0at postgraduate level.<\/span><\/p>\n

“To use a sporting parlance\u00a0the\u00a0scheme\u00a0 will\u00a0 give most students whose families who are on a low or middle incomes…. a swim,sink or drop out of the entire race option.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the USI have rightly pointed out – many students are already heavily overdrawn as they struggle to pay for their undergraduate programmes so this scheme will be of limited value. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere also can be no justification for applying a 10.8% interest rate to the loans on offer which is both punitive and unfair. It compares very unfavorably with the British government-backed scheme which charges an interest rate of 1.5% and the reality is that most students who access this loan will find themselves burdened with years of debt.<\/span><\/p>\n

The high rate of interest will act as a disincentive for anyone wishing to pursue a post-graduate qualification and I also share the view that this scheme will become a long-term alternative that is designed to replace central government funding and allow the reintroduction of third level fees for undergraduate courses.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student loan scheme option\u00a0no solution\u00a0\u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Se\u00e1n Crowe, TD, believes the new government-backed loan scheme for post-graduate students that was introduced this week by Bank of Ireland will further perpetuate a two-tier college system. DescribIing the scheme as\u00a0giving\u00a0most\u00a0\u00a0students whose families\u00a0who are on a low or middle income\u00a0\u00a0a….. \u00a0swim,sink \u00a0or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}