In a recent email to students, UCD has stated that “all full-time EU undergraduate and postgraduate students” registered for this academic year are to receive the COVID-19 once-off emergency grant of €250 before February 28. This comes four months after the initial announcement that students were to receive such payment.
This has been announced weeks after students in receipt of the SUSI grant were afforded their once-off payment of €250. Any full-time EU undergraduate/ postgraduate student who is not in receipt of the SUSI grant and is ordinarily registered in UCD as of November 1st 2020 will be eligible to have this payment credited to their UCD fee account. The short email specifies that this sum will be automatically allocated against any outstanding fees currently owed by eligible students. If no fees are owed, or if their value sits at less than €250, this will be credited towards the next academic year’s fees for all eligible students. Students should expect an email verifying that the credit has been applied.
Should there be no outstanding fees for 2020/21 and you are a final year student, a refund will be issued for the amount that has been “overpaid” after UCD “have applied this credit”.
The UCD website has stated that students who reside in the UK will continue to fulfil the criteria of ‘ordinarily resident’ for the free fees scheme. While this is the case, it has not been explicitly stated that this will satisfy the criteria (EU undergrad/postgraduate) for this once-off payment.
Casey Conway- Assistant News Editor
