For the first time, third-level students will be obliged to include their new post code in their college grant applications. The grants authority, Susi, will use the codes to assess qualification for an enhanced grant based on a distance from places of study.

The Eircode postal code was introduced last year and is not yet widely used. This is one of the early tests for the code system which was expensive to devise and the subject of other controversies, not least questions about effectiveness compared with the considerable costs.

Susi will oblige students applying for grants to use the system from early next month onwards. The code is expected to more efficiently determine just how far a student is from their place of study.

Students based more than 45 km (28 miles) from their college are entitled to an enhanced grant. Depending on the other qualification criteria, the difference could be up to almost €6,000 per year for the top end and less than €2,500 at the lower end.

Up to now the Susi authority relied upon Google Maps for this assessment, which can be varied to take account of traffic flows. Currently, almost half of students receive the so-called "non-adjacent rate" for living further away.

Susi believes it can make considerable staff cost-savings in the switch to a more automated system. It is also hoped that confusion arising from large numbers of rural homes sharing the same, or very similar, addresses can be ended.

But there is a lot riding on this for some students and their families. The Eircode postal code system's reputation and public confidence in it for the future, will depend on how well this works out.

Meanwhile, another announcement by Susi, that students may know a good deal earlier about decisions on their entitlement to a grant, deserves an unqualified welcome from students and their families.

In ideal circumstances, some students may know in May or June about a grant for the college year beginning next September. This would allow a student to make a more informed decision about what lies immediately ahead. All of these changes come amid the challenging good news that record numbers will avail of third level education.

Irish Independent