University challenge: Non-fee schools match fee-paying ones

NON FEE-PAYING schools provide equally high numbers of undergraduates to two of the country’s leading universities as fee-paying ones, figures show.

While the feeder schools providing most students to Dublin’s third-level colleges are largely fee-paying, the ‘free education’ sector performs just as well as the fee-paying one for admission to University College Cork (UCC) and University of Limerick (UL).

In the list of schools whose students gained places at UCC and UL last autumn, published in today’s Irish Examiner (print edition), a mix of fee-paying and free schools are in the top 10.

More than 60 students who sat their Leaving Certificate at the fee-paying Limerick Tutorial Centre entered UL last year, the biggest single source of first-year entrants.

But of the other top 10 feeder schools, only Bruce College Limerick (in 10th place with 26 first-year entrants) charges fees.

At UCC, the biggest group of new students came from Coláiste Choilm in Ballincollig, a non fee-paying school which provided 90 undergraduates.

This was more than the 89 and 70 students, respectively, from the city’s fee-paying Christian Brothers College and Presentation College. Other free schools which supplied large numbers of undergraduates to UCC last year include Christ the King Secondary School and Mount Mercy College.

The figures contrast with those in Dublin universities, whose biggest feeder schools include large numbers of fee-paying institutions, many dedicated solely to preparing students for the Leaving Certificate.

The focus on this year’s college places begins on Wednesday, when Leaving Certificate results are made available to 58,800 candidates at their schools. Students can also check their grades online on the State Examinations Commission website (www.examinations.ie) from noon on Wednesday.

For those who submitted their choice of college courses to the Central Applications Office (CAO), the first round of offers will be made next Monday, with most of the 60,000 applicants again expected to check for offers online this year.