Short answer first: SUSI funds progression, not repetition. If you are repeating a year on the same course, SUSI says you will not be eligible for grant funding unless there are exceptional circumstances. A new course has to lead to a higher qualification than any you already hold. You still owe the student contribution, which UCC puts at a maximum of 2,500 euro for 2026/27, and you owe it whether or not a grant is paying. You can appeal, and then appeal again, and the clock on the first stage is 30 days.
The rules are not hidden. They are just written in scheme language, and students meet them at the worst moment, in August, after a bad set of results. Here is what each one actually does to your money.
What does progression actually mean to SUSI?
It means moving up, not sideways and not again. SUSI's eligibility criteria say you must be attending an approved course that leads to a higher level of qualification than any you may already hold and that is at a higher level than any course you previously attended. The National Framework of Qualifications is the measuring stick, which is why the application asks for the highest level you have reached rather than what you studied. If you are not sure how repeats and capping work on the academic side, how Irish university exams work covers that half.
- The grant is annual, not a block award. SUSI states that if you are continuing your course you need to renew your application online to find out whether you are eligible for the coming year. Nothing rolls over on its own.
- Renewals open before new applications. For 2026/27, SUSI opened renewals at 12 noon on 5 March 2026 and new applications at 12 noon on 1 April 2026, with priority closing dates of 11 June 2026 for renewals and 9 July 2026 for new applications. The dates are set each year, so take the current ones from susi.ie rather than from last year's memory.
- Continuing is a renewal. Changing is a new application. If you have finished a course, changed institution or started a different programme, SUSI puts you back through the new application route.
- One course per level. UCC states the consequence in a line: SUSI will only cover contribution and maintenance for one course per NFQ level, and you must be progressing to be eligible.
So the question SUSI is asking every summer is not "did you pass" but "are you further up the framework than you were". A repeat year answers no.
What happens if you repeat a year?
The renewal page is unambiguous: if you are repeating a year on the same course, you will not be eligible for grant funding unless there are exceptional circumstances. The eligibility pages put the same rule the other way round: you are not eligible for a grant if you are repeating, except in exceptional circumstances.
That covers both the maintenance payments and the fee element. And it is not a permanent loss of the grant. It is a year without it. If you pass the repeat and move into the next year of the course, you apply again for that year as a progressing student.
The application form is where this gets decided. SUSI's form guide shows question C3 asking whether this is a repeat year, and then, if you answer yes, whether you are repeating due to exceptional circumstances. Answer that second question honestly, because a yes routes your application to a team rather than to an automatic refusal.
The months you have already used
Time counts even when the year does not. SUSI's rule is that a period of study already pursued at a level has to be matched before maintenance starts again at that level. Its own worked example: a student who completed three months of a full-time level 7 course and then applies for a different full-time level 7 course gets six maintenance payments instead of the full nine, and has to complete an equivalent period of study of three months before the first payment lands.
Read that as a running total. Every month you spend at a level is a month deducted from what a future course at that level can pay you. Dropping out in November of first year is cheaper than dropping out in April.
What counts as exceptional circumstances?
Illness, bereavement and comparable events that stopped you completing the year. SUSI does not publish a closed list, and it does not need to: the point of the category is that it is assessed individually.
Two Irish colleges describe the ground in practical terms. UCC tells students that if you had a medical or family situation that impaired your ability to sit exams, submit assignments or attend lectures, you may be able to apply to SUSI under exceptional circumstances. MTU tells students that if you held a grant in a previous year and had to defer or withdraw due to extenuating circumstances such as serious illness or bereavement, you can reapply for a repeat year on that basis.
How it is assessed is the part to plan for. SUSI's form guide says that if you answer yes to the exceptional circumstances question, you will be contacted directly by the Exceptional Circumstance Team about your application. That is a human reading your documents, so the documents decide it:
- Medical or professional evidence covering the period, with dates that line up with the teaching term you lost.
- Your college's own record of the deferral, withdrawal or extenuating circumstances decision.
- The exact date you withdrew or deferred, if you did.
- A short written account of what happened and which assessments it hit.
Do not send a letter dated the following September describing a February you cannot evidence. Ask your GP, your student health service or your tutor for something contemporaneous while the term is still running.
What if you already hold a qualification at the same level?
Then the grant is closed to the new course, and it stays closed whether or not you were ever funded for the first one. The test is the qualification you hold and the courses you attended, not the money you received. A second level 8 degree after a first one fails progression. A level 8 after a level 6 or 7 passes it.
The application asks you to declare all of it. Question C4 asks for details of every further and higher education course you have previously attended, including courses you did not complete or where you gained no qualification, and it tells you that if you withdrew it is very important to state the specific date of withdrawal. That date is not a formality. It is what SUSI uses to work out the period of study you have already used.
The second chance route
There is one way back in at the same level. SUSI's second chance provision applies to a mature student who previously attended but did not complete a course, has had a three year break in studies since leaving it, and is returning to an approved course at PLC, undergraduate or postgraduate level. Study below undergraduate level during those three years does not break the break.
If that is your situation, the mature application route is worth reading alongside it: mature students in Ireland sets out how the entry side works. For a move up to level 9 rather than sideways at level 8, taught master's degrees in Ireland covers the year you would be funding.
What happens when you change course or transfer?
Tell SUSI, and tell them in the portal rather than by hoping the CAO did it. SUSI's guidance on changing your course says you can submit a new online Course Change Notification form at any time, and that your application will be decided on the basis of the most recent course details provided to SUSI. Grants can only be awarded for approved courses, so a move to a course that is not on the approved list ends the grant regardless of level.
If you defer or do not take up the place at all, SUSI asks you to cancel the grant application in the My Requests tab of your portal. Leaving a live application against a course you never attended is how an overpayment starts.
| Your situation | What usually happens to the grant |
|---|---|
| Progressing to the next year of the same course | Renew each year. Funding continues if you still meet the income and other criteria. |
| Repeating a year on the same course | Not funded, unless SUSI accepts exceptional circumstances. |
| Repeating with accepted exceptional circumstances | Assessed individually by SUSI's Exceptional Circumstance Team after you flag it on the form. |
| Transferring to a different course at a higher NFQ level | Treated as a new application. Months already spent at the lower level do not block it. |
| Transferring to a different course at the same NFQ level | Fails progression. Maintenance restarts only after an equivalent period of study is completed. |
| Second degree at a level you already hold | Not funded, unless you qualify as a second chance student. |
| Moving to a course that is not SUSI approved | No grant, at any level. |
| Deferring or not taking up the place | Cancel the application in the portal to avoid an overpayment. |
Who pays the student contribution while you are unfunded?
You do. The contribution is charged by your college and is separate from the grant. UCC states that the maximum rate of the student contribution for the academic year 2026/27 is 2,500 euro, and tells students repeating a year that they are liable for the full contribution plus tuition charged per 5 credit module through the fees schedule.
When you do hold a grant, the fee element goes straight past you. SUSI states that payment of any fee grant awarded to you is made directly to your college on your behalf on the basis of your confirmed registration and attendance. On the 2026/27 undergraduate rates, every SUSI maintenance band covers 100 percent of tuition fees or the student contribution, and above those bands sit tiers that pay part of it with no maintenance at all: half the contribution up to a reckonable income of 71,300 euro, and 500 euro up to 120,000 euro.
The gap that hurts is the unfunded repeat year, because the contribution arrives at registration and the maintenance does not. Work out that number in June, not in September. Where it falls in the academic year is laid out in the Irish academic year, month by month.
When do you have to tell SUSI something has changed?
Immediately. SUSI's notes for applicants say you must tell them if any information you provided is no longer correct, and that failure to do so leaves you liable to repay any overpayment and possibly ineligible for a grant. If you receive a grant you were not entitled to, you repay the maintenance paid to you and the fee grant paid to your college on your behalf.
SUSI's change in circumstances page splits the triggers in two. Income changes include loss of employment, a permanent reduction in salary, retirement and cessation of trading, and the change has to be likely to continue. Non-income changes include a sibling or parent starting full-time further or higher education, an increase in dependent children, a change in nationality or immigration status, a change of permanent residence that affects your rate, and a change of course or institution.
The timing rule cuts both ways: if the change happens during the academic year, any grant award or adjustment takes effect from the month in which the change occurred. Report a drop in household income in October and the award runs from October. Report it in March and you have lost five months you were entitled to.
How do you appeal a refusal?
Two stages, then the courts, and each has a clock.
The two stages and the clock on each
| Stage | Who decides | The timing SUSI publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Appeal to a SUSI appeals officer | An appeals officer inside SUSI | Lodge within 30 days of receipt of the decision letter. The officer notifies you in writing within 30 days of determining it. |
| Appeal to the Student Grants Appeals Board | The independent SGAB | Open only after you have the appeals officer's written decision. The board has 60 days to determine it. |
| Point of law | The High Court | Provided for in the Student Support Act 2011, against the SGAB determination on a specified point of law. |
SUSI's appeals page walks through the portal steps: My Requests, then Appeal your Grant Decision, then the academic year, then your grounds and a full description, with up to three supporting files. Keep the files to the point. An appeals officer reading a medical letter and a college confirmation of your deferral has something to work with. An appeals officer reading three pages of explanation does not.
Before you appeal, check whether what you actually need is a review. SUSI's review route handles a changed or wrongly assessed fact: the adjacent or non-adjacent rate, a reassessment of household income, special rate eligibility, or a change of circumstances including a course change. SUSI says you must have a final decision before requesting a review, and that if you have already submitted a review or an appeal you should wait for the outcome before submitting another. Firing off both at once slows you down rather than doubling your chances.
SUSI does not publish the SGAB lodging deadline on its own appeals page, so when the appeals officer's letter arrives, read it for the date and send the board's notice of appeal straight away rather than waiting for results or fees to settle.
Where Notibo fits
None of this is a study problem, and Notibo does not touch grants. What it does is narrow: it records a lecture, or takes an audio file you upload, and returns a transcript, structured notes and flashcards with spaced repetition. It turns PDF, PPTX and DOCX files into notes and flashcards, which is the part that matters if you are repeating a module and want the second pass through the same material to be faster than the first. It transcribes 89 languages, and the transcript comes back in the language that was spoken. Pro is free for the first 14 days, with 240 minutes of recording and no card. After the trial the free plan gives 30 minutes of recording a month, and Pro is 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year, listed on the pricing page.
On the practical side: uploads are capped at 50 MB, and long recordings are saved in smaller parts as they run and joined back into one transcript. Files are stored in the EU, on Supabase in Frankfurt, while transcription and the AI notes run on US processors under standard contractual clauses. Recording a lecturer needs their permission first. If an unfunded repeat year is the reason you are reading this, the honest advice is to spend the June before it on the appeal and the paperwork, not on software.