Colleges struggle as politicians dodge

This week, 56,000 students took their first Leaving Cert exam. Most of those young people plan to continue their education in a third-level college or institute. There are 225,628 students, supported by 24,000 staff, in those institutions. The sector has, for years, struggled with growing student numbers unmatched by increases in government funding.

This imbalance may be at the heart of this week’s report from the global third-level comparison process, U-Multirank, which showed that only two Irish universities — Maynooth and the University of Limerick — did not slide down world rankings. This litany of decline recorded that, for example, Dublin’s Trinity College fell out of the top 100 category, to 104th. UCD fell from 168th to 193rd; NUI Galway dropped 17 places, to 260th. UCC recognised that its drop, from 283rd to 338th, was disappointing, but pointed out that the rating was inconsistent with other evaluations.