Updated 11.28am

SUSI HAS ASSIGNED a dedicated unit to handle postgraduate students who must have their grant applications reassessed or else face the possibility of the authority ‘recovering’ the funds.

However, just six of the 65 who received a letter have reapplied.

The remainder were sent another letter from the grant authority on Friday to ask them again if they wanted to be reassessed.

These reassessments are being given top priority within the existing SUSI team.

The students involved received a letter earlier this month inviting them to be reassessed as dependent students.

The letter stated that if the student don’t do this, SUSI “will have to implement a recovery process in order to recoup the cost of fees from you that were paid to your institution in respect of the 2012/13 academic year.”

The error arose from students applying and being classed as “independent”, where the income of the applicant and their spouses’/cohabitants’ are assessed, when they should have applied and been assessed as “dependent”, where the income of parents or guardians is taken into account.

Background: SUSI may ‘seek to recover’ 65 postgraduate grants >

Read: SUSI restores grant funding for 39 dental nursing and hygiene students >