Minimum five week wait for Mayo student grants

Minimum five week wait for Mayo student grants


Rowan Gallagher

A 50 per cent rise in new applications for Higher Education Grants is expected this year by Mayo County Council, who have confirmed that it may take be up to five weeks after September 1 before any new applications are processed and paid out.
As a result, college students will have to wait for up to six weeks after starting college this year to receive their grant payment from Mayo County Council, a spokesperson for the granting authority has confirmed to The Mayo News.
New applications to Mayo County Council will be paid out after a four to five week period as of September 1 with some universities and colleges taking up to and over a week to lodge the cheque to the student’s account, after which the bank then has to clear the cheque taking a number of days.
Students who are simply renewing their grant for the coming college year could also have to wait until October to receive their entitlements, with Mayo County Council expecting the first batch of payments to be paid to the college/university administrations in the third week of September.
Students who are in receipt of the student grant do not pay the 1,500 registration fee at the start of the college year but do have to pay for accommodation, including a deposit and usually a month’s rent in advance, prior to the the first week in September.
This year so far, over 600 new applications were made to Mayo County Council compared to 527 last year but a spokesperson for Mayo County Council told The Mayo News that they are expecting the figure to rise to over 800 by the time all applications are made.
Fine Gael spokesperson for Social Protection, Deputy Michael Ring, has called on Mayo County Council and the Mayo VEC to ensure that additional resources are made available to get grants to students in a timely fashion.
“In cases where students haven’t been issued with the grant yet, I would be urging the college not to hound students over the €1,500 registration fee either,” Deputy Ring told The Mayo News.