Education and Other Outcomes for SUSI Support Recipients 2012-2022

Destination Outcomes Definition

There are five classifications that describe destination activities within each calendar year. 

• 'Employment only'. This refers to persons who meet minimum criteria for substantial employment or self-employment and are not enrolled in higher education within the same calendar year.
• 'Employment and Education'. This refers to persons that meet the criteria for substantial employment or self-employment and are also enrolled in higher education at some point within the same year. 
• 'Education only'. This refers to persons that are enrolled in higher education but are not in substantial employment.
• 'Neither Employment nor Education'. This refers to persons who do not meet the criteria above but have some activity in administrative records for that year. These individuals may have some record of (non-substantial) employment or claimed some benefit in that year.
• The remaining individuals are categorised as 'Not Captured'. This means that they have no activity in the administrative data sources for that year. Most of this group are assumed to have emigrated, but there is no definitive indicator of emigration available in the administrative data.

For further details, see the accompanying ELD methodology documentation.

Participation in Education

There are a number of databases which record participation in education. The destination outcomes in this release include the following data sources in the definition for being 'in education'.

HEA Activity

Enrolment of students in higher education is analysed using a dataset on enrolments provided by the HEA, which includes a record for each academic year that an individual is enrolled. Since the academic year spans two calendar years, for the purposes of the outcomes analysis, a student was considered to have education activity in both calendar years covered by an academic year.

SOLAS Activity

The PLSS dataset, from SOLAS, contains actual start and end dates for learners in further education. Learners were considered to have education activity if they were either on course to complete or had already finished a PLC course in the calendar year.

Degree Outcomes Definition

There are six classifications that describe the degree outcomes of new entrants in higher education. 

• 'Not Completed'. This refers to persons who did not have a graduation record for their degree up to an including calendar year 2022.
• 'Grade H3'. This refers to persons that graduated with an overall H3 or pass award.
• 'Grade H2.2'. This refers to persons that graduated with an overall H2.2 or lower merit award.
• 'Grade H2.1'. This refers to persons that graduated with an overall H2.1 or upper merit award.
• 'Grade H1'. This refers to persons that graduated with an overall H1 or distinction award.
• The remaining individuals are categorised as 'Other Grade Outcome'. This means that they graduated from their degree but there is either no record of a grade or the grade does not map to the standard award structure.  

Certificate Outcomes Definition

There are six classifications that describe the certificate outcomes of PLC learners in further education. 

• 'No Award'. This refers to persons who did not get any type of award.
• 'Any Minor, Special Purpose or Supplemental Award'. This refers to persons who obtained any minor, special purpose or supplemental award, but did not get a major award.
• 'Major: Pass'. This refers to persons who obtained a major award with pass (50%-64%). 
• 'Major: Merit'. This refers to persons who obtained a major award with merit (65%-79%). 
• 'Major Distinction'. This refers to persons who obtained a major award with distinction (80%-100%). 
• The remaining individuals are categorised as 'Other Major Award'. This means that they obtained a major award but there is no record of a grade in QQI data.

SUSI Definitions

Received SUSI support

A student or learner is defined as having received SUSI support if they received either a maintenance grant to help with living costs, a fee grant towards tuition fees, or both.

Dependence and Independence

Those students or learners who received SUSI support were classified dependent or independent as follows:

• If the student or learner is under 23 on 1 January of the year of their first point of entry into further or higher education, they are automatically classed as dependent.
• If the student or learner is 23 years or over on 1 January of the year of their first point of entry into further or higher education, they may be classed as either mature dependent or mature independent.
• To be classed as mature independent, the student or learner must have been living independently from their parent(s) or legal guardian(s) from the October in the year prior to their first point of entry / re-entry into further or higher education and must provide evidence for this.
• In the absence of documents to confirm independent residency, they are defined as mature dependent.

Adjacency

Adjacency refers to the distance between the student's normal residence and college. Adjacency status was determined for those who received SUSI support as follows:

• For dependent / mature dependent students, the normal residence is the permanent or home address of their parent(s) or legal guardian(s).
• For mature independent students, the normal residence is their permanent or home address.
• The distance in kilometres of the shortest most direct route between the student's normal residence and the college was measured.
• The cut off distance for the higher education cohorts in this study 2012 -2017 was 45km, however the cut off distance was recently lowered to 30km.
• Those with a measured distance equal to or over the cut off distance are said to be non-adjacent and those under the measured distance are adjacent.