A Case Study on a Policy that Failed. The Introduction of Free Tuition Fees for Irish University Students – A Policy Success or Failure?

I am sharing my research on several important public policy issues to help create awareness of the policy problems and the possible solutions.

Abstract:

In 1995, the Irish Government introduced a policy which abolished tuition fees for all university undergraduate students. This assignment examines the outcome of this policy on the socio-economic gradient to determine whether the reform was successful in achieving its objective of promoting educational equality among all socioeconomic groups. The then Minister for Education made clear her primary policy goal, was improving the chances of low socio-economic status (SES) students progressing to university.

The assignment finds that the policy was not directly responsible for achieving its stated aim. Evidence also exists that the policy, by itself, did nothing but benefit students from economic backgrounds who had traditionally gained access to university.

The results are consistent with findings for the UK, which show that the socioeconomic gradient in second-level attainment largely explains the socioeconomic gradient in higher education participation (Chowdry et al., 2013) – a policy challenge this initiative could never solve, by itself.

In 1995, the Minister for Education, Niamh Breathnach gave free tuition fees for all students offered a place in a university. Breathnach said she was motivated to remove one of the last barriers of privilege in Ireland (O’Brien, 2023).

She argued that the policy would lead to more students enrolling in college, better access for the disadvantaged and more degrees leading to more graduates in the workforce.(O’Brien, 2023).

In a televised interview, she clarified her chief policy aim by stating that access to third-level education should be a right, not a privilege. On the Radio Teilifis Eireann, Question and Answer’s programme, she took exception to an allegation that she was subsidising the middle classes by this policy, making it clear that her goal was supporting students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. (YouTube, 1996).

The Minister said the abolition of fees would level the playing field in a much more transparent way and make access to third-level education an aspiration for everyone (YouTube, 1996).

Twenty years later, the then-former Minister stood over her policy, stating that free fees were a plan to break the cycle of disadvantage in certain areas. (Breathnach, N, (2016).?

The policy of “free” higher education is attractive. It suggests that it aims to make society egalitarian, offering free access to this vital opportunity and making it available to everyone, regardless of background or means.

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Political actors were possibly trying unsuccessfully to adopt Birkland’s policy feedback theory which is a body of theory based on historic institutionalism that seeks to understand how prior policy decisions influence future decisions (Birkland 2020). Comparisons were made with the introduction of free second-level fees by Minister Donagh O’Malley, a highly regarded figure. Free second-level fees are now lauded as one of the most influential policy decisions made by any Irish government. Is it possible that Niamh Breathnach was trying to gain the same regard as her predecessor without considering the consequences of her policy actions?

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The outcome never matched the policy objective. Statistics have shown that social exclusion from higher education remained high. For example, while some areas of Dublin had almost 100 per cent participation rates in higher education, others continued to have rates well below 10 per cent, and these rates did not change because this policy was a failure (Von Prondzinski, 2010).

Statistics compiled by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) fifteen years after introducing the free-fee policy even showed a deterioration in this participation.

DUBLIN POSTCODE LOTTERY: COLLEGE PARTICIPATION RATES Dublin 1... 23% Dublin 2... 26% Dublin 3... 60% Dublin 4... 84% Dublin 5... 47% Dublin 6... 99% Dublin 6W... 82% Dublin 7... 41% Dublin 8... 28% Dublin 9... 55% Dublin 10... 16% Dublin 11... 28% Dublin 12... 37% Dublin 13... 36% Dublin 14... 76% Dublin 15... 47% Dublin 16... 79% Dublin 17... 15% Dublin 18... 58% Dublin 20... 32% Dublin 22... 26% Dublin 24... 29%

DUBLIN AVERAGE... 47% NATIONAL AVERAGE... 52%

Source: HEA figures for?2011-2012

The reason is that fees are not the central issue for these groups, as even before their abolition, people from disadvantaged backgrounds qualified for grants and were exempt from some or all tuition fees. This policy ensured that the rich no longer needed to pay fees, and some middle-income groups now found it easier to afford college.

This is an example of how policymakers can often make policy knowing that the chances of moral hazard risks with undesirable side effects, that were perfectly anticipatable as much as they contradicted the aim of the policy.?

This policy would have benefited from the scenario writing which should be part of the development of any new policy. The policy actors in this case should have guarded against excessive optimism by studying what scenarios might cause the policy to fail to produce the desired outcome. Other considerations could be is the policy alone sufficient to solve the problem? (Bardach and Patashnik, 2020).

This proves that government policymakers were possibly more committed to ideological and partisan agendas than specific values and evidence-based policy goals. This kind of policy can be described as political rather than professional or scientific (Kraft & Furlong, 2021). The core vote of the Irish Labor Party, of which Minister Breathnach was a member, is drawn from the lower middle-class section of the voting public (IPSOS).

This policy is an example of how government intervention fails to solve collective action problems: The effect of the policy was that the people it was designed to benefit were no better off. The people who already benefited became better off

This student believes it is a case of policymakers acting in their interests. In the 1990s, the Irish Labor Party moved towards middle-class “respectability” and distanced itself from its union roots.

This policy sought to convince analysts and actors that free fees would solve social disadvantage problems and that no further resources were needed. Quantitative studies prove access for the disadvantaged required continued investment from primary school onwards and significant budgetary commitment. Nevertheless, as this policy led to money transfers to wealthier families, the need for earlier-level investment was overlooked.

There is now a consensus amongst most analysts and academics that free fees amount to a redistribution of resources from the poor to the rich. It was a policy that was proved to be morally and financially unsustainable, e.g. (Denny, 2010), (Deleisle and Hauptaman, 2021), (Hayes, 2002). The causal assumption behind this policy was that more students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds would be supported and incentivised to university access.

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This is what, in development literature, is called a theory of change or, in broader social science, is thought of as a causal mechanism. As part of this, it will identify a long-term goal or impact of a policy. It will show the assumptions underpinning the policy and the causal mechanism at work in delivering the outcomes (Fitzgerald et al., 2019).

As with most policy interventions, the free fees initiative had a target population – The set of people the 1992-1997 government aimed to reach were primarily second-level students from households that could not traditionally afford to attend university. These were the people whose behaviour policymakers aimed to affect.

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) figures for 2011 and 2012 indicated the effect intended by the free-fee policy had not been met.

Even with the free-fee policy and grant programs to cover student contributions, participation rates for disadvantaged students were well below those from more well-off families. (Higher Education Authority, 2011).

The differences are even more stark when looking higher education sector. Data found that young people from higher professional backgrounds are 6.4 times more likely than those from semi/unskilled manual backgrounds to enter university - that disparity did not improve with this policy.No indication that the removal of tuition fees in Ireland boosted overall participation among underrepresented groups. (McCoy and Smith, 2011). Other researchers found that increases in enrollment among low-income students are attributable more to underlying trends in college enrollment in Ireland than the free-fees policy (Denny, 2010).

The chronic gaps in higher education access between low-income and more affluent students remained a significant challenge despite the free-fees policy.

Ireland employed a regulatory approach for improving equity. The Office for Fair Access was tasked with monitoring equity efforts at individual institutions and assisting them in developing plans to improve the representation of disadvantaged students. Subsequent governments provided institutions with a funding premium for enrolling students from postal codes with high concentrations of low-income families.

The fact that the free-fees policy and these additional efforts collectively have not reduced chronic equity gaps in Irish higher education raises the question of whether other reasons exist for the stalled progress. Kevin Denny, a professor at University College Dublin, wrote in 2010 that the data suggest a student’s performance in high school and entrance exam scores are more important factors than tuition prices are in predicting college enrollment (Denny, K. 2010). Lower-income students tended to have lower scores, and Denny finds that is the biggest barrier students face and not the price of tuition. Without some other intervention—these students will be underrepresented even if they are free.

Another reason equity of access remains an issue in Ireland despite the free-fee policy is that the policy has not materially reduced costs for many low-income students. This is partly true because many students with financial need received substantial aid from the government before the free-fees policy (Denny, 2010). ?Targeted grant was available aid to low- and middle-income students to offset some of the costs of attending college. Two-thirds of university students received grant aid to cover tuition before the free-fees policy was adopted (Denny).

Living and travel expenses are still a barrier for students even if their tuition is free (Burns, 2017). Free tuition made the higher education system less equitable.

After free fees were introduced, there was disproportionate growth in enrollment among children whose parents belonged to higher professional groups - middle and high-income families. (McCoy and Smith, 2011). Denny reached a similar conclusion, noting that the only apparent effect of the policy was to provide a windfall gain to middle-class parents who no longer had to pay fees (Denny, 2010). ?A 2006 OECD report echoes these findings, stating that beneficiaries of free fees in Ireland have been drawn disproportionately from managerial and professional classes (McCoy and Smith. 2011).

This policy failed because effective policy interventions have a target population they aim to reach. It was students from lower socioeconomic families who were targeted but statistics and literature reviews proved that students from lower to upper socioeconomic were the beneficiaries.? This policy intervention was not made on evidence-based, causal assumptions. If it were successful, the policy assumptions would have anticipated a cause-effect outcome in keeping with the minister’s aims that the long-term impact would have benefited students from families least represented. Policies change the behaviour of individuals, organisations or companies, but it is not always direct or wholly predictable (Fitzgerald et al, 2019).

The best available measure of success or failure is whether support for the policy is durable, and few would seek to overturn the policy (Fitzgerald et al). The €3,000 student contribution charged to all students was a clear-cut decision to increase student fees, irrespective of the additional burden on students from low-income backgrounds, effectively rolling back the 1996 policy while avoiding its outright abolition.

This is not a policy which led to a change of outcomes. The outcomes were achieved by other actors, policies and societal changes such as Access Programmes, Local Area Partnerships, the growth in university places, the influx of immigrants and improvements in the maintenance grant system. This literature search shows the 1996 introduction of free fees was not successful and it also had negative consequences that some predicted.? The policy could even have regressed to the mean without this policy intervention, but because there is an intervention and a change in outcome, causality is often wrongly assumed. (Fitzgerald et al),

The failure to overturn a policy is not a positive endorsement in this case. New policies and investments were introduced to realise what the 1996 policy did not deliver.

Historian Barbara Tuchman cites four sources of misgovernment: tyranny, hubris, incompetence and folly, some of which apply to this policy and the reasons for its introduction. Hubris applied to Minister Breathnach as her interviews gave the impression that she had greater powers to affect her policy ends than were possible. Incompetence is also applicable as the chief actors did not use a considerable corpus of evidence. Folly is ‘the pursuit of policy contrary to the constituency or state involved’ (Thuchman, 1984). Evidence given in this assignment proves it was not or even ever would be in the interests of the stated constituency - low socio-economic status (SES) students. Tuchman elaborates on ‘folly’ it consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs (Tuchman).? This assignment proves there was ample evidence that free tuition fees was the wrong policy for the policymaker’s objective.

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References:

Bardach, E and Patashnik, E.M (2020) A practical guide for policy analysis – the eightfold path to more effective problem solving, 6th ed., London: SAGE Publications.

Bhreathnach, N. (2016). Why I Took the Decision to Make Third Level-Education Free, University Times, Available: https://universitytimes.ie/2016/11/why-i-took-the --decision-to-make-third-level-education-free -free/ [accessed 04 December 2023].

Birkland, T.A. (2020) An introduction to the policy process – theories, concepts and models of public policy making, 5th Ed., ?New York, Routledge.

Burns, N, (2017) “Cost of Going to College in Dublin? €12,495 a Year with Rent,” Irish Times, June 30, 2017, https://www.irish-h times.com/news/education/cost-of-going-to-college-in-dublin-12-495-a-year-with-rent-1.3139428 ; [accessed 5 Nov 2023].

Chowdry, H., Crawford, C., Dearden, L., Goodman, A. and Vignoles, A., 2013. Widening participation in higher education: analysis using linked administrative data.?Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society,?176(2), pp.431-457.

Denny, K? (2010) “What Did Abolishing University Fees in Ireland Do?,” University College Dublin, School of Economics & Geary Institute, May 20, 2010, https://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp201026.pdf. [accessed 5 Nov, 2023)

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FitzGerald C., O’Malley E. and Broin D. (2019)?Policy success/policy failure: A framework for understanding policy choices. Administration, Vol.67 (Issue 2), pp. 1-24.?https://doi.org/10.2478/admin-2019-0011 [accesses 5 December 2023].

Government of Ireland, Department of Education and Skills, National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030: Report of the Strategy Group, January 2011, https://www.education.ie/en/publications/policy-reports/national-strategy-for-higher-education-2030.pdf ..

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Higher Education Authority, “Key Facts and Figures,” 2012-2012, 39, https://hea.ie/assets/uploads/2019/01/Higher-Education-Authority-Key-Facts-Figures-2017-18.pdf . [accessed 7 November 2023]

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Higher Education Authority (2019), Department for Education and Skills, A Spatial & Socio-Economic Profile of Higher Education Institutions in Ireland, 5. https://9thlevel.ie/wpforwardcontact/uploads/Higher-Education-Higher-Spatial-Socio-Economic-Higher-Profile.October2019.pdf .

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Kraft, M E., and Furlong, S R., (20100 Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives 7th ed., ?California: SAGE Publications.

McCoy, S., Smyth, E. Higher education expansion and differentiation in the Republic of Ireland.nbsp;High Educnbsp;61, 243–260 (2011). https://doi-org.dcu.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9375-x [Accessed 5 Nov 2023}

O’Brien, C. (2023) ‘Free Fees’ Aimed to Make College Accessible for All – Did it Work?’, The Irish Times, 27 Feb, 23.

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Tuchman, B.W. (1984) The march of folly: from troy to Vietnam, New York. Knopf.

YouTube (2019) YouTube, 30 Sept 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iryYW3QQaVE [accessed 14 Nov 2023].

Von Prondzinsky, Ferdinand, FVP, (2010) 'Free fees' Were a Disaster for Society and the Third-level System, Leftfield, Available: Tuesday, Nov 9 2010. ?[accessed 05 Nov 2023].

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