Students from the Republic could pay in excess of £5,000 for one year's study, following this week's recommendation that tuition fees should be reintroduced for third-level courses in the UK. Under proposals contained in a new report on British higher education, published on Wednesday, a tuition fee of
£1,000 will apply to all third-level undergraduate courses in the UK, ending half a decade of free third-level education.
A spokeswoman for the British Department of Education and Employment said that tuition fees are set to be introduced from October 1998. If implemented, the fee will increase by about 25 per cent the current estimated maximum expenditure by students from the Republic in the UK.
According to estimates from the National Union of Students in Britain, the annual cost of living for students is £4,293 for those studying outside
London and £5,251 within the Greater London area. Greater London remains the most expensive area in which to study while Wales is the cheapest, according to the British Council. Monthly costs in Wales last year were as low as £264.
Elsewhere, costs in Scotland - the second most popular destination for students from the Republic after Northern Ireland - were estimated at £
340 a month; costs in the Midlands were estimated at £364; and students at Oxford or Cambridge could expect costs of about £370 per month. As of last week, according to the British universities admission service, UCAS,
10,863 students from the Republic had applied for places in UK colleges for the academic year 1997/98. This represents a decrease of about 8.4 per cent in the level of applications at the same point last year. Most of those students will also apply through the CAO/CAS system in Ireland.
The Union of Students in Ireland yesterday called on the Minister for
Education, Mr Martin, to clarify his stance on tuition fees for southern Irish students in the UK.