Students go to college on empty stomachs

STUDENTS are going without food and some are dropping out of college as a result of financial hardship caused by delays in processing student maintenance grants, according to one students’ union leader.
NUI Galway (NUIG) Students’ Union president, Paul Curley, has claimed some students “can’t afford rent, food or study materials” as a result of processing delays, since responsibility for new applications was moved from local authorities to the online Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) system.
In December, parliamentary questions revealed that less than half of all students from Clare had their grant applications processed, leaving almost 1,000 students from the county waiting for a decision. More than 2,000 students from Galway were in the same position.
Mr Curley revealed that during this academic year, the education officer in the NUIG Students’ Union experienced a 162% increase in the number of students dealing with grant-related problems as of the end of December. He said the delay, and subsequent uncertainty, in processing student maintenance grants is resulting in students dropping out of college and is having an ongoing, negative impact on students and their families.
“The uncertainty has increased huge amounts of stress. Students who qualify for grants have been means tested. The process has identified them as people who need financial support to make it through college. They rely on the grant. They don’t have other means. They can’t ask their families for support; their families simply don’t have it.
“We’ve seen many students who have completely run out of money. They can’t afford rent, food or study materials. Their studies are being affected and it’s certainly resulted in students dropping out of college,” Mr Curley claimed.
“The uncertainty is the worst. Some students have been told they’re getting the grant but haven’t heard anything else. Some students have heard nothing at all. They’re in limbo.
“They’re building up rent bills and borrowing off anybody who will lend to them and they don’t know what, if anything, is coming their way,” he went on.
Mr Curley said the NUIG Students’ Union is now offering reduced-price meals in order to stop students going hungry.
“The support services in the university are being hit hard. The Student Assistance Fund has seen a huge increase in applications. There is anecdotal evidence that local charities have seen increases in applications for emergency assistance.
“In most cases, students are simply going without. Students tell us every day that they’re not eating proper meals or just skipping meals.
“We’ve taken the step of offering a main course meal in the Students’ Union Catering Service for just €3.50. It’s barely covering the cost of providing it but as long as we can pay our staff and suppliers, we’ll continue with it. There’s a huge demand,” he explained.
The Students’ Union in the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) is having a similar experience. It has begun offering food boxes to students experiencing hardship at its Galway campuses.

“In conducting Student Assistance Fund interviews, we found more and more students saying they were going without food all day from when they came in to college at say 9am or 10am right through until 6pm or 7pm when they go home because they couldn’t find the money.
“We are hoping this scheme will offer some kind of solution in the meantime while these students wait for their student assistance fund applications to be processed or while they wait for their grant to come through,” said Joe O’Connor, GMIT SU president.
He told The Clare Champion that because this is an issue that affects first years, many students don’t know about the supports available.
“A certain number of those affected may not be aware that this fund is in existence. There may be more of these students out there that haven’t come to our attention or applied for the Student Assistance Fund. We are hoping this will bring this scheme to the attention of any students who are having serious financial difficulties so we can assist them,” he added.
In Limerick, students are finding themselves in the same position.
“They are struggling,” said Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) SU president, Niamh Kavanagh, “no question”.
“LIT have been great. They have done all they can to make it as easy as possible for the students affected to come to college, so they are not singled out by the mess-up with SUSI. Like the other colleges, we are seeing students going without food. We offer practical support for people who are genuinely in difficulty. Even simple things like we have a microwave in the SU for students who want to bring in their own food, smart savings like that. There is also the Student Assistance Fund and the Student Hardship Fund. While the forms for those are lengthy, it can be another way to get funding.”
Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said the students and parents contacting him are having the same problems due to delays processing grants.
“I know quite a few students whose parents are no longer employed and they are struggling to feed other children that are in second and primary education. They are struggling to send them back to school after the Christmas break. I am aware of some parents who had some financial reserves set aside to get them to Christmas in the hope the grant would have come through. It hasn’t. They exhausted all their reserves and are now sending students back to college begging landlords to give them another few weeks grace on the rent.
“Some landlords have been very good but some are under financial pressure themselves from various financial institutions and this is creating a circle of difficulties for a whole array of individuals,” he noted.
“Some students are borrowing from friends to get their lunch and that is just a couple of euro. Some college students are busking on Saturdays in the various cities. It is an appalling situation and beggars belief that the Government would have allowed this administration nightmare to continue. This was flagged early on to the minister and I fail to understand why more people weren’t employed over the Christmas period to try to deal with the backlog that exists,” Deputy Dooley concluded.