It emerged today that people in rural areas are more likely to be successful in their grant applications than their Dublin counterparts.
Previous research showed that nearly 40 percent of farmers get a grant for their sons or daughters.
Spokesman for the Irish Farmers Association Tom Doyle says the figures simply highlight the reality facing his group's members.
“To qualify for a grant, a family with less than four children must have an income of less than 52,000 euro” he said.
“The average farm income is less than half of that, so it's not surprising that farmers would fall into the category of qualifying”.
“The reality is the system is showing up that farm incomes are very low” he added.
Figures from SUSI show Longford has the highest applicant success rate at 71.5 percent, compared to 45.6 percent of students in Dublin.
58 percent of Tipperary applicants are awarded grants…while 64.8 percent of new applications from the Premier County were granted.
Graham Doyle, communications officer for SUSI says it is likely that generally higher incomes in Dublin are to blame for the disparity.
“We don't have analysis done on this ourselves because we're only starting analysis from this year – but we would expect when we do the means testing in Dublin that it would be generally higher” he said.
“There are particular areas within Dublin where employment would be higher and income within households is lower – and therefore there would be a higher success rate within those areas within Dublin” he added.
