From college fees to minimum wage, here’s what Budget 2026 means to students.
The budget arrived earlier on during the week to public discord over its sobriquet of the ‘Budget of Austerity’.
Stepping away from such a phrase that sounds like a poor entry into a superhero franchise, with greater reflection over the biggest news of the year for many, the question must be asked; what does Budget 2026 mean for students and young people across the country?
Fees & Grants
Despite the consistent language used by the government to describe the changes to college fees as a reduction, this €500 grant in Budget 2026 means that students will in fact be paying €500 more than the ‘Post-Covid’ years.
Between 2022 and 2025, the State established a ‘once-off’ €1,000 for third level education fees, lowering the maximum payment to €2,000, 25 per cent lower than the maximum of €2,500 established in this year’s budget.
This grant will furthermore be introduced with immediate effect, benefiting students during the 2025-26 college year.
Apprentices in higher education will have their fees reduced by up to 17% on a proportional basis.
An €810 million allocation will fund infrastructure projects such as student accommodation in University College Dublin, Maynooth University, while also funding the recently established research and innovation agency Taighde Éireann.
Students receiving the SUSI grant, living more than 30km away from their third level institution, will receive an increase to between €111 and €239 in January 2026, and between €200 and €430 in September 2026 for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years, respectively.
Mental Health
This year’s budget made a pitch towards the promotion of mental health services.
Expansion of mental health services through increased staffing and funding support a plan set for increased access to the HSE’s Child and Adolescent in Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Traveller mental health initiatives.
Transport
The Department of Transport itself will be receiving €4.7bn in allocated funds to oversee the rollout of DART+ and BusConnects programmes in Dublin, a Cork area commuter rail, and several national road projects that will affect university commuters from various regions across the country.
A further €2bn will be provided for the construction of Metrolink.
Employment
For students working part-time alongside their studies, the minimum wage will be raised by 65 cents up to €14.15 an hour from 1 January 2026 onwards, 20 cents shy of the previous year’s budget increase of 80 cents.
As for final year students looking forward to breaking into the world of full time employment by the end of the academic year, increased need for staff in a myriad of sectors of Irish society was reflected in Budget 2026.
Funds have been allocated for an additional 1,717 Special Needs Assistants, An Gardaí Síochana will see a recruitment of up to 1,000 trainees, and other civil service positions, while a €1.3bn allocation for the Department of Enterprise seeks to support Irish businesses and also promote foreign direct investment.
Drawbacks
While providing good news for some, Budget 2026 has not come without its controversies.
Its aforementioned stringency in comparison to years previous has attracted opprobrium from Mary Lou McDonald. Speaking in the Dáil, the Sinn Fein leader criticised the budget for leaving workers “worse off today because of your budget” when addressing the Taoiseach.
During an RTÉ Radio 1 phone-in show on the morning of Wednesday October 8, callers lamented a budget that simply wasn’t for them, with “nothing for us, nothing for the middle class” said Marie, while another listener slammed the college fees reduction “made it look like we’re getting something”.
Across the board, the budget has received criticism on how it fares worse for the workers in the state than years before, favouring profits over people.
While Budget 2026 does address key issues within the education sector and mental health service in the country, a lot is left to be desired for the support of issues that saw little change like housing and tax that await currently enrolled students in the years to come.
