DCU President warns of third level funding crisis

A major funding crisis is to affect Irish universities and must be immediately addressed to keep standards from dropping, according to DCU President Ferdinand von Prondzynski.

His comments came after the heads of UCD and Trinity College came out in criticism of the alleged 30% drop in funding from the government, which will put third level standards well behind European competitors.

“It is clear that funding for third level has, in real terms, been reduced signifi cantly over the past decade or so and this will begin to have a dramatic impact on quality throughout the whole sector,” says the DCU President.

“Overall government expenditure has grown significantly, but the amount per student has been going down steadily due to increases in numbers.” Funding per student has dropped one third since 1995, leaving universities to cover the cost of providing facilities for their students - a fact that some are having diffi culty with. According to von Prondzynski: “We are, like all the others, facing an increasingly serious problem but we are different in that we have managed to deal with the funding issues without running a deficit, so financially we are sound.”

The €526 million allocated for third-level funding this year is €6 million less than in the previous 12 months according to government estimates. This means a drop in funding for DCU of €3 million to €49.5 million.

The Irish Universities Association has also come out in criticism of government policy, with director Ned Costello saying: “One of the biggest effects of this funding fall in real terms can be seen in the much bigger groups for lectures, which means less individual time for students.

“If you walk around most campuses, the conditions people are learning and working in is appalling. You can’t cherry-pick the parts of a system you want to be world class.”

This increasing outcry for more funding, coupled with budgetary restrictions, has reignited the debate on college tuition fees. Four years ago an OECD review of higher education backed the return of fees but Minister for Education Mary Hannifi n has said they were “off the agenda”. Without them, the Minister has still to put forward a plan or strategy to realistically achieve her “world-class” vision.

In response to these under-funding claims, Ms. Hannifi n has allocated €58 million to universities for research facilities, with DCU receiving €5 million in total. The President’s response to this was positive, saying: “The infrastructure grant was good news for us - proportionately we did very well.”

Although the government has increased funding in research through the National Development Plan and the €3.8 billion Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, this has been matched by a similar reduction in funding for the core areas, according to the universities.

The heads of several universities are positive on the subject of the latest research allocation but the heads of UCD and TCD state that “it must not be used to shirk the immediate funding problem.”