merrion street

The national student grant awarding body, SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland), has announced that its online application system, for new and renewal student grants, for the 2016/17 academic year is now open, more than two weeks earlier than last year.

SUSI is entering its fifth year of operations. The national awarding body performed extremely well last year, processing over 108,000 applications with in excess of 83,000 students (new and renewal) awarded grants for the 2015/16 academic year.

It is expected that the number of applications to SUSI for the upcoming academic year will surpass 110,000. In order to meet the challenges posed by such numbers and in building on its continuous learning, SUSI has introduced a number of further key improvements for 2016/17, including:

· Earlier application opening date;
· More automated validation of the online application form;
· Earlier awarding of applications based on the course choices provided by students;
· Extended data sharing with Government Departments and agencies; and
· Use of Eircode to streamline the calculation of distance.

Graham Doyle, Head of Communications and Customer Service with SUSI, has this message for students, “I would encourage students to visit our website, www.susi.ie, and review the eligibility criteria for student grant funding prior to making their applications. We have an online grant eligibility reckoner that enables students to answer a short set of questions following which they will be given an indication as to their eligibility for student grant funding before making their applications. Applications are made through our website and I would encourage students to submit their applications as early as possible.

Students who are progressing to the next year of their course must renew their grants and we will be writing to students who received grant funding for the 2015/2016 academic year in the coming days.

We are very satisfied with how the processing of applications for 2015/16 went and we have made some more improvements to our systems and processes to further enhance the service that we provide to students for 2016/17. One such improvement is the introduction of Eircode to our online application form. When students begin inputting their address online, their full address and Eircode will auto-populate. This will help speed up the processing of applications. The actual calculation of distance from a student’s home to college, however, will not be changing from previous years and we will continue to calculate distance using google maps”.

The closing date for the prioritising of renewal applications is 6 June, 2016 and for new applications is 8 July, 2016.