I really wish I knew that when I was in my teens and 20s holding down 2 jobs to barely make ends meet with 40% of my income going to my share of a shitty illegal basement suite’s rent and another 25% going to students loan payments at 12% & 15%, that I was a “have”. Eventually things started to pay off in my 30s and at 60 I might be able to retire at 65. It has felt like 45 years of continuous slog so it feels really off that some kid is complaining that after going to their ‘dream university’ and ‘travelling the world on cheap flights’, and ‘door dashing every meal’ with a ‘continuous supply of Amazon or Temu’ being delivered, is the hard done by one. Or maybe, not everyone in every generation is in the same predicament. I know plenty of people older and younger who have done exceptionally well and plenty who have scraped by their whole lives. If you buy into everyone older than me had it easy, you will never be happy in life. Every generation has it’s own struggles. Every generation has people who never struggled.

Just a guess but maybe if they aren’t government backed scholarships, Ireland has no way of verifying them. What happens if Ireland helps the students get to Ireland and it turns out there isn’t any real money? Now Ireland has to deport the students, which they won’t be able to, so they will then have to cover the full amount of the bogus scholarships to pay for the students who otherwise can’t afford to be there.