Third-level students have described this year’s budget as “devastating”, saying a €500 permanent reduction in college fees is an “effective increase”.
The headline student measure announced on Tuesday will see students’ fees permanently reduced to €2,500, down from €3,000.
Although it is the first permanent reduction in student fees in some three decades, the “once-off” decrease in fees of €1,000 that has been a common feature in the last three budgets has led to the reduction being seen as an increase.
Although the permanency of the reduction may bring some level of certainty as to the cost of fees, it means some 108,000 third-level students are set to pay an additional €500 this academic year, when compared with the last three years.
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Bryan O’Mahony, president of Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn, formerly the Union of Students in Ireland, said students have been left “extremely disappointed” by the measure.
“We of course welcome the announced permanent reduction in fees, for which we have lobbied for years, but repeat that the effect on students will be felt as an increase in fees,” he said.
The withdrawal of cost-of-living payments will have a “significantly negative impact” on student welfare, he said.
[ From childcare to welfare: five takeaways from Budget 2026Opens in new window ]
Although the €500 decrease was circulating ahead of the budget’s announcement, “it doesn’t make it or its effects any less devastating”, said Channing Kehoe, marketing and communications director for Trinity College Dublin’s students’ union.
“It’s another barrier to education for thousands of students who are already stretched so thin just by rent, the accommodation crisis, and living costs as well.
“It’s clear that the Government is hiding behind the phrase ‘permanent decrease’ to obscure the fact that the temporary reduction and the broader commitment to abolishing fees in the long term is being entirely disregarded,” she said.
Labour’s spokeswoman on higher education, Senator Laura Harmon, meanwhile, said fees should not be rising but removed entirely, “as is the case in many of our European counterparts”.
“Despite a pledge in the Programme for Government to reduce third-level fees in the lifetime of their Government we now see a €500 increase dressed up as a ‘decrease’ on last year’s €1,000 reduction,” she said.
Ms Harmon said rising student poverty, which sees some students going to class hungry, is a “direct result of sky-high accommodation costs and the persistence of the contribution fee”.
Separately, an increase of €5,000 to the household income threshold for Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) grants is expected to benefit some 20,000 students.
The income threshold will increase from €115,000 to €120,000 on September 1st, 2026.
Non-adjacent maintenance grant rates, postgraduate fee contributions and the income threshold for the €500 student contribution grant are also set to be increased, though details of the increases are not yet known.
Overall, the Department of Further and Higher Education has been allocated almost €5 billion in funding in Budget 2026.
Some €4.1 billion of this will be used to provide an additional 1,110 new places in highly sought-after courses in medicine, nursing, and other health and social care areas. The increased places are expected to boost capacity by 27 per cent.
It will also fund 25 medical places and 86 nursing places for students from the Republic at Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast, “strengthening the health workforce and cross-Border collaboration”.
A further €810 million in capital allocation will be used to fund infrastructure projects, including student accommodation at Maynooth University and University College Dublin.
Some of the capital funding will also be used to establish two new veterinary medicine colleges, which are expected to almost double the number of veterinary graduates.
