Cheap education important to Irish

March 24, 2005
By Maureen Schulte
Staff Writer

A Cheap Education Among Irish Students Makes School a Second Priority

Imagine if you didn’t have to pay for college and the government covered most of the costs for your education. It might actually change your attendance level or result in a lack of schoolwork since college would be almost free. This way if you didn’t attend class or do homework you wouldn’t be wasting your money and college would not produce such costly debt. 

For Irish students going to college in Ireland doesn’t cost nearly the amount it does American students since the Irish government nearly covers the cost of their education. Irish students only pay a registration fee of 700 euro, which is about $1,000. That is inexpensive compare to what Americans pay for college. 

Getting a cheap education might seem great, however, the consequence of this has created a general attitude among Irish students that has placed school as a second priority.

Many Irish professors see a lack of effort in school and an increase of absentees in classes amid the Irish students. As many of the teachers agreed at St.Patrick’s College in Carlow, said the major difference between American and Irish students is American students take college more seriously, attend class regularly and don’t miss deadlines.

“In one of my classes of third year students, less than 50 percent of the class didn’t turn in their essays on time, which usually never happens with the American students,” religion professor at St.Patrick’s Amelia Fleming College said.

“Americans have much more enthusiasm and a greater need to be on time and the Irish students are more laid back about college, which is like that throughout Ireland,” Fleming said.

However, back at colleges in the United States, students also have the tendency to skip and miss due dates, but there are many students who take school seriously since they are paying large sums to be there. 

“If I’m paying  $20,000 to go to college, of course I’m going to make the most of it and get the education I’m paying for,” St. Ambrose student studying in Carlow Michael Conrad said. “Yet, if I didn’t have to pay for school, like here in Ireland, teachers probably wouldn’t see my face in class as much.”

As it may seem that paying little for your education is not just the only reason for the lack of effort in school, but also that the Irish professors do not penalized students for missing class and due dates. 

“ Since my absent in class does not affect my grades, of course I have more of a tendency to skip,” Irish student Mary McEvoy said. "If I were penalized for skipping class and not turning my work in on time, I probably would make more of an effort to do the work and be there in class.”

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