UCD set to cut course places over funding problems

The country’s largest university is to look at cutting places for Leaving Certificate students in the coming years unless funding problems are urgently addressed.

The warning came from University College Dublin president Prof Andrew Deeks, who said the college’s improvement in the latest global rankings is down to taking in more international students and using their fees to hire extra staff.

It is one of three Irish institutions to move up the QS World University Rankings, rising from 176th last year to 168th, but still below its 154th position in 2015 and 89th place in 2009. Trinity College Dublin remains Ireland’s only Top 100 university in the QS rankings, moving from 98th to 88th, but far off its places between 43 and 67 in the 2009 to 2012 period.