Opinion
15 Sep 26

AMLÉ President Daniel Walsh: "There’s a cohort of young people who are simply being priced out of higher education"

Credit: Conor McCabe Photography

With students facing a range of major issues, including rising costs, AMLÉ President Daniel Walsh believes it’s time they made their voices heard.

Before becoming President of Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (AMLÉ), Daniel Walsh was a law student at Trinity College Dublin and Vice-President for the Dublin Region. His time with the national representative body has involved travelling, visiting campuses, campaigning, and most importantly, listening to students. That, he believes, is essential to the organisation’s role, to “stay connected and make sure we never lose sight of the big issues students are facing.”

One of those issues is obvious: the cost of going to college. “There’s a cohort of young people who are simply being priced out of higher education,” Walsh says. “People who’d like to study and graduate in a particular field, but they simply aren’t being given that opportunity.”

The crisis goes beyond the numbers. In his conversations with students, Walsh sees people “impoverishing themselves” just to make it through college.

“That includes students who are commuting three or four hours a day,” he says, “and students who are working 40 hours a week on top of their studies. Students are going to lectures hungry, because they have to skip meals.”

Indeed, Walsh describes what’s unfolding as “the death of the college experience”. Across campuses, he has seen engagement with clubs and societies fall. Students are struggling simply to get by. Some don’t have the time or energy to engage in campus life, meaning they miss out on the “exploration of self-discovery and soft-skill development that people associate with university.”

For Walsh, those experiences are not extras. They are part of what higher education is supposed to offer. There is also a hidden crisis, he says: students who are passing their exams and completing their degrees, while struggling constantly behind the scenes.

“People like to talk about college and say it’s the best years of your life. But from speaking to students, it’s becoming more apparent that, for so many, college is something you just have to survive through.”

Ideally, choosing higher education should come down to one question: what course is best for me and for my future? Instead, students are being forced to study close to home or undertake “impossible daily commutes”, because there isn’t enough affordable accommodation.

For Walsh, none of this is separate from politics.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re interested in politics, because politics is interested in you,” he says. “Whether you’re struggling to find accommodation, or you’re crammed into a tiny lecture hall, paying out of pocket for essential study materials, every major facet of your college experience is the direct result of a political choice somebody else has made.”

His message to students is blunt: get angry, and get organised. He urges people to get involved with their local students’ union, attend meetings, speak to officers, and educate themselves about the political decisions affecting their education.

Then, on October 1, he wants students to make their voices heard.

“Students and their unions across the country are going to take to the streets,” he says, “and demand that the Irish government prioritise higher education, and young people, in the upcoming budget. If we are united as one, and turn out on the day, we can demand a better future for ourselves.”