LOCAL students are cutting back on food and going without heat during winter to make ends meet according to new survey published earlier this month.
The survey by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) found that more than a third (38.7 per cent) of students go hungry to stay in college while 34.2 per cent go without heat so they can afford registration fees and their rent.
Cáit Ní Cheallacháin, a second year student at DCU living on Collins Avenue, Whitehall, said she has to make sacrifices in order to complete her degree.
“I pay €440 rent a month, and then on top of that there could be €60 for heat and €40 for gas,” she told Northside People.
“I’m also paying a loan for my fees and then I have to pay travel for getting into work as well.
“I had to cut back on food, electricity and heating and when I wasn’t getting many hours in January, I had to go without heating for three weeks.”
Ní Cheallacháin’s experience ties in with the USI survey that reveals 58.1 per cent of students in Ireland miss meals to stay in college.
Stundent union President, Kevin O’Donoghue, admitted he was ‘shocked’ by the survey’s results as the findings were worse than the student union anticipated.
However, DCU Student Union Welfare Officer, Domnhail Harkin, told Northside People that food is just one of the areas that students are having to cut back in.
“I’m not surprised at all,” he said. “Living in Dublin now is very expensive and we see rent prices going through the roof. Just the day-to-day stuff you hear from students is crazy.
“I find that students are struggling, they’re doing their best, but our students are paying €500 per month minimum [on rent], €550 or €600 in some places, so it’s a real struggle.
“Because rent is so expensive students are cutting back everywhere they can, and one of the things they have to cut back on is food, which is crazy.”
Harkin said that the biggest expenses faced by Dublin students is paying the registration fee and rent, which on average costs about €5,925 for the academic year according to DIT’s Campus Life service.
The service claims that rent for students in Dublin can vary from less than €348 per month for a shared room and up to €1,089 or more for a one bedroom unit.
The guide also claims that expenses such as food, travel, utilities, books, clothes/medical, mobile and social can cost as much as €5,076 for the year, bringing the grand total up to €11,000 a year when rent and registration fees are included.
The USI has called for increased State funding into third level education and for corporations who are benefitting from Irish graduates to re-invest into the higher education system.
The union has also asked the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform not to raise registration fees as it would only make matters worse.
REPORT: Jack O’Toole