If you're planning on applying for a college grant this year, you better get your skates on.

Applications for third-level maintenance grants and financial aid are expected to exceed 100,000 for the upcoming academic year and SUSI are therefore encouraging anyone who has not yet filled out their submission form to do so by Thursday, July 13. 

Over 80,000 applications have already been received and over 10,000 new students have been awarded funding.

Graham Doyle, Head of Communications with SUSI is urging students to check their website in order to find out in they are eligible or not.

"There is a section on our home page called a grant eligibility reckoner. It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is but it's a really quick tool where students can self assess whether they may or may not be entitled to a grant," he said.

"It takes on average over two minutes to complete. I would encourage students to use it and see if they are eligible for a grant."

He continued, "We've got over 50% of our applications already completed and we've awarded grants to more than 41,000 students.

"Of those 41,000, a lot of them would be renewing their grant from previous years but we've over 10,500 new students, the vast majority of these are leaving cert students."

To apply for a grant, or to find out if you are eligible, please visit www.susi.ie.