As noted in the Introduction, the HEA has a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) in place with Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI), the national grant awarding authority. Through the DSA, SUSI has transferred data to the HEA which provides data from 2017/2018 to 2022/23 grant recipients.  The data transferred includes students’ grant rates, adjacency rates and distance from college.

An analysis of selected data from Equal Access Survey for SUSI grant awardees among New Entrants to Higher Education, can be accessed in Word and PDF formats below.

Purpose of this report and analytical approach

Readers are requested to take into account the analytical note included in the Introduction, noting that this report stands alone analytically within this suite of reports.

This report provides descriptive analysis of New Entrants for the period 2017/18 to 2022/23, grouped by whether students were awarded a SUSI grant or not and examines variables from data collected in the Equal Access Survey (“EAS”) for the corresponding year. It presents results for differences between the groups in:

1. Ethnicity
2. Disability
3. Parental status and receiving One Parent Family Payment

The HEA definition of new entrants is as follows:

• Level 6, 7, 8 programmes including: higher certificates, ordinary degrees, undergraduate honours degree
• Full-time mode of study
• First year students
• New entrant student code

An important consideration for the analysis of survey data such as EAS is the overall response rate to the survey (unit non-response), response rates to individual questions in the survey (item non-response), and any systematic differences between the two groups with respect to both of these. Interpretation of the results should take consideration of any such differences, as differential response rates may influence what inference can be derived from the results.

PPSN is used as the basis for linking of data between HEA and SUSI datasets. However, readers should note that not all these students have a PPSN. Those that don’t have a PPSN are mainly internationally-domiciled students.

It should be noted that the dataset in this analysis does not encompass the full cohort of students in receipt of a SUSI grant.  Other SUSI grant holders, such as those in further education, those in non-HEA-funded institutions and those studying abroad are not included in the analysis.  This analysis is restricted to those studying higher education in HEA-funded institutions.  More details on the grant system and the methodology behind this report can be found on the Methodology and Definitions page.

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Key Findings

A summary of the key findings is given as follows:

• The proportion of respondents to the Equal Access Survey varied between 72% and 78% over the observed period, and was quite similar among those who did and did not receive a SUSI award. However, the pattern of respondents to specific questions is systematically different for questions related to disability.

 

• The proportion of New Entrants reporting an ethnicity other than White (Irish) in the SUSI group was more than twice that of the non-SUSI group, 30.2% to 13.9% in the 2022/23 year. White (other white background) was the most frequent of the ethnicities other than White (Irish).

 

• The number of students reporting at least one disability increased by 50% between 2017/18 and 2022/23, and the proportional change was greater in the non-SUSI group (82.3% increase) compared to the SUSI group (13.1% increase). For the SUSI group, there was a decline in disability reports between 2021/22 and 2022/23.

 

• For the SUSI group, the disability type responsible for the largest part of this growth was psychological conditions, which peaked for this group in 2021/22 and then declined in the subsequent year. For the non-SUSI group, learning conditions, psychological conditions and other conditions all grew substantially throughout the period, including in 2022/23.

 

• Among those students with a disability who reported requiring additional support, there was a strong growth in cases throughout the period for those in the non-SUSI group. For the SUSI group, there was modest growth to 2021/22 and then a decline to 2022/23. For those reporting more than one disability, both the SUSI and non-SUSI groups grew in frequency over the observed period, while the non-SUSI group had a comparatively higher increase between 2020/21 and 2022/23.

 

• The proportion of respondents who reported being a parent has declined from 4.9% in 2019/20 to 3.1% in 2022/23 in the SUSI group. In the non-SUSI group, the proportion reporting being a parent was lower at between 1% and 2% and more stable over time.

 

• Of those reporting being a parent in 2022/23, 31.3% in the SUSI group reported receiving the One Parent Family Payment while 14.7% of the non-SUSI group did so. The proportions were relatively similar in other years.

 

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Read report in Word

Read report in PDF