Grants
Maintenance Grant
Please note that after the last Budget incoming students (as of September 2010) will no longer be eligible to the maintenance grant if they are collecting the Back to Education Allowance. If you are a current student and in receipt of both the maintenance grant and the back to education allowance, you will continue to be eligible for this - the only difference is that there is a 5% cut in the maintenance grant.
The maintenance grant is the main source of financial help
available from the Irish State for students in full-time Post Leaving
Certificate Courses (PLCs) and full-time higher education
undergraduate/postgraduate courses. Support is available to eligible students in
most colleges in Ireland as well as eligible Irish students in many colleges in
Northern Ireland, the UK and other EU States. For eligible students, the
maintenance grant is there to help with the various costs of participating in
further or higher education. Students on part-time courses, access or foundation
courses (in higher education institutions) and short courses are not eligible to
apply for a maintenance grant.
Family and/or personal income is a key factor that will be
assessed when you apply for a maintenance grant but there are also some other
conditions. Studentfinance.ie can help you to assess whether you are
eligible and guide you in starting the process. In all cases, the official
decision on eligibility is of course made by the grant-awarding bodies.
To work out whether you may be eligible for a maintenance grant
you need to be aware of the main conditions of the schemes. The 8-step guide,
which you can access from the left-hand side of this page, will assist you in
this process. Each step has a button that will guide you through the eligibility
requirements of the schemes in a way which is relevant to your own particular
circumstances. We suggest that you start with Step 1 and allow the website to
guide you through each in turn.
If you think you are eligible for the maintenance grant, you
should apply for it as soon as possible after the application process opens,
usually in June of each year. You do not have to wait until you receive
an offer of a place or enrol in college. The closing date for receipt of
completed applications by the grant-awarding agencies for the 2008-09 academic
year was 29 August 2008. Only when your application has been completed in full
and submitted to the grant-awarding authority can your eligibility be
determined.
Note: The provisions of the maintenance grant schemes can
change from year-to-year.
