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MINISTER FOR FURTHER and Higher Education Simon Harris has said he is “disappointed” at a decision by Bank of Ireland to discontinue a loan available to graduate medical students.
Minister Harris is due to bring a review of the Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) system to government, which will look at supports for students who pursue medicine through this route.
Fees for graduate entry medicine (GEM) students are now set at €16,290 per year for Irish students and €55,140 for non-EU students.
GEM students pursue the programme as a second degree – after first completing a separate related undergraduate degree - so they are not eligible for free fees funding or student grants.
The fees of participating EU students are partly subsidised by the State through the Higher Education Authority – in the 2020/2021 academic school year, the State contribution was €11,524 per student.
The Bank of Ireland loan, which was capped at €15,000 per year, contained a moratorium on repayments so graduates would not have to start paying back the loan until four years after they completed their degree.
The bank has said that those who have already taken out these loans will not be impacted, but that the loan will no longer be available for new applications after 31 July this year.
“The loan required a parental guarantee which was not an option for all students and the deferral of repayments meant accumulated debt by the end of term,” Bank of Ireland said in a statement.
“It has accounted for a very small volume of our overall lending and the volume has dropped in recent years, while our other loans became more popular.”
The bank said it has a number of other loans for undergraduates, postgraduates and graduates.
“These include our student loan to fund back to college expenses, travel or living expenses, and our postgraduate loan. We also offer extremely competitive rates via a Personal Loan up to €65,000.”
‘Disappointed’
A spokesperson for Minister Harris told The Journal he was “disappointed with this decision”.
“His main concern is the cost of graduate entry medicine to the student,” she said.
“He is due to bring the Susi review to government shortly and will consider how to better support students in this context.”
Ruairí Power, President of UCD Students’ Union, told The Journal that it will be important that affected students are considered as part of the Susi review.
“You can’t separate the discussion on loan requirements from the fee levels themselves,” he said. “The single most-effective measure the government could take would be to reduce the up-front cost for students.
“Loans are not an overall solution here, but having this loan facility removed pulled the rug out from under students and left them with no viable alternative.”
He said students who were intending to pursue a GEM are now planning to take a couple of years out to work and save the funds they need to continue with their education.
“It’s either that or people will go abroad, and right now we have a chronic shortfall in recruitment and retention in the health service so a lack of access into that course will be a problem.
“It was also meant to diversify the field and if it’s only available exclusively to those with a large amount of accumulated wealth it defeats the purpose of the GEM scheme.”
‘Colossal money’
Speaking in the Seanad earlier this week, Minister for State Anne Rabbitte said the decision “was sprung upon the government, and now the government is dealing with the matter as quickly as it can”.
“This is a priority for the government,” she said. “We do not want to be in such a situation where we cannot recruit young people into these courses because they cannot afford them.”
She said these loans were “so helpful because they acknowledged the level of professionalism required in such courses, that they were intensive and that there would be an opportunity at the end to work and earn enough income to repay them”.
“Removing the loans from the market makes it difficult for students to consider pursuing such careers. Parents may not have the funding or correct credit status to be successful guarantors.”
Minister Rabbitte was responding to a question on the issue from Labour Party Senator Annie Hoey, who referenced a survey of Irish GEM students which found that the majority require external financial support to pay the university fees.
“We all know how much those university fees are; they are €16,000 per year to study GEM,” she said. “That is colossal money. It is €64,000 that they have to take out as a loan. Some 74% of those who responded have or would have eventually sought to avail of the Bank of Ireland loan and that is a significant number.”
“The fees were already exorbitant and we have had conversations before about how it is unrealistic to expect people to pay them,” Senator Hoey said. “We will never have any sort of diversity in medicine if we have the likes of €16,000 per year fees and if we are locking people out of loans for that money because they cannot get guarantors or take out a personal loan.”
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It would be more in his line to make it a law that medical students who qualify in Ireland to remain working in Ireland for at least three years after qualifying.
@Laura McCarthy: Why? If they financed their own education, then they can do what they like, right?
@Laura McCarthy: a friend of mine, who was in international student doing medicine, wanted to work as a doctor in Ireland after she graduated but couldn’t find a place. Our medical schools are producing more doctors than there are graduate training places in the hospitals. That would need to be fixed, rather than mandating compulsory service
@David Corrigan: yeah, they pay for themselves, because €16,000 covers the cost of educating a medical student.
@Laura McCarthy: Who do you think pays for their education then?
@David Corrigan: Is that a serious question? Why do you think the Minsiter for Higher Education Simon Harris is in this article? It’s the tax payers who pay for students in this country. The €16,000 wouldn’t even keep the lights on.
@Laura McCarthy: When did all this happen? Does the tax payers pay for student rent, meals, bus/car travel, phones etc?
When I went to college, it was financed by my father and myself. I don’t recall getting anything for free.
@David Corrigan: It must have been a commerce course you did by the sounds of it….
@David Corrigan: It must have been a commerce and economics course you did by the sounds of it….
@Laura McCarthy: So you can’t answer the question? I’ll ask you again. How is it free when the parent and person going to college has to pay for all the items I listed and college fees?
If you can’t answer that, then please just admit it.
@David Corrigan: I will answer a question with a question – “you don’t recall getting anything for free” – what did you or your father pay your lecturers per hour? What was the overall esb bill? What were the local authority contributions? What were the fees for services, cleaning, upkeep of the college? Will you jog on now and don’t be making silly arguments.
@Laura McCarthy: The true cost is the €55k that non-EU students pay. The €16K is a subsidised figure.
@Sean: agreed
@Laura McCarthy: Assuming 4 students sharing an apartment. Rent, food, travel and phone comes to about €1250 per month. Let’s assume college fees of €3000 which is pretty standard. Total cost to me as a parent for a 24 week (6 month) college year is about €10,500. That works out as €42,000 over 4 years.
That number after the € symbol is not 0 Laura. Education is not free to a parent or the student working in a part time job.
@David Corrigan: the education is free, the costs of getting educated are not. By the by, would they not have a phone and not have to eat even if they were living at home.
@Laura McCarthy: Would that apply to medical graduates only, or to all graduates where there is a shortage? There’s a significant risk that the bad working conditions for non – consultant doctors would worsen if their employers know that they have no choice but to stay. As soon as the 3 years are up, the newly free doctors are out of here.
@Laura McCarthy: As colleges are partly funded by the tax payer, then your taxes pay for the running of the schools.
An old report so costs would have increased since 2017. The bottom line is that nothing is free in Ireland when it comes to education. It is as simple and as black & white as that.
@Mickey Finn: Good point.
@Laura McCarthy: Here is a thought – make Irish medical graduates want to stay in Ireland?
@ChronicAnxiety: why oh why would they want to stay in Ireland…with no idea of their rosters unless two weeks in advance so cannot plan their lives….no further training to progress….less wages than elsewhere….no wonder they leave….last year the bulk of doctors from College of Surgeons went abroad and you cannot blame them
It’s going to make medicine even more elitist. Never mind 70% of the colleges are international student. There’ll be less and less Irish medical student and Irish doctors.
The number of doctors going through medical school should not be reliant on loans from a commercial bank. Given that we have a shortage of doctors anyway perhaps the government should take it upon themselves to ensure that enough people, from all backgrounds, are able to choose this profession.
@Pat Forster: It’s not just that. It’s reliant on a whole range of factors, e.g., Pay and conditions in Ireland, pay and conditions abroad, individual ambition, parental and societal pressure, college places funded by government, ability of colleges to take more students, training places available in hospitals, overall spending on the hospital system. It’s not that this government shouldn’t try to improve things, it’s just unlikely they’ll be successful during their time in office.
Such short term thinking by the banks. This type of loan should also be available to the middle class 3rd level undergraduates who are not eligible for Susi grants but who need financial support.
Banks who give loans to college students and then require immediate repayment do not understand the long term investment potential. Building bank loyalty can start early, if you give a successful student loan that does not require first monthly repayment until 6 months after you graduate, guess where they will more likely take out a car loan, a mortgage, etc.
Banks are really missing out by dropping this type of a loan for medical students as well as not providing robust and realistic student loans for 3rd level students.
@Seeking Truth: You have a point, I’ve been using BoI my entire life because if you opened a student account with them back in 1985, you got a free Fleetwood Mac tape. I don’t even like Fleetwood Mac that much.
Wow thats how much it costs to study medicine in Ireland!? We really are gradually tearing apart the only infrastructures that were working for us, namely education and policing (as opposed to housing and transport with Healthcare somewhere in there). Anyway the exclusion and inaccessibility will evolve and maintain social gaps for many decades to come. Well done Irish people! Keep voting LOL!
I’m disappointed in that Wally simon harris.
I don’t care if simon is disappointed – we need action
Bobsheets should be making it easier to get into medical training, its one of the few REAL jobs worth doing….
Why not start a state student loan facility for all 3rd level students? I know when the time comes I’ll struggle to help my children to go to college but also we won’t qualify for supports. A 3rd level degree increases your earning potential so why not lend students the money with a deferred pay off and low interest rate. I had a student loan for my final year at college in order to move out of the family home. It meant when other were travelling the world for a gap year I had to knuckle down and get a job. That’s reality.
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