President claims students are privileged

Responding to the Sin Investigation registration fee article, NUIG President Jim Browne said that "third level students are privileged" and that fees should be reintroduced to fund universities.

Last week, Sin revealed that only €513, or one third, of the registration fee is spent on student services; meanwhile the registration fee has increased sevenfold since its introduction in 1996.

Browne acknowledges that the increase in the registration fee equates to fees through the backdoor and that the increases have been "compensation for a reduced block grant". This was done "pro-forma by the HEA" and "Batt O'Keefe made it clear that it is a case of registration fee up, block grants down".

Browne claims: "Students are better advised go get involved in a discussion on what type of fees rather than refusing the idea of fees completely." He continued: "The country is more or less broke. The state can't continue to spend €2 billion on third level."

By Richard Manton

For more see Sin Investigation on Registration fee by clicking on 'Current Issue' on the following link:
http://www.sin.ie/site/view/2