I hope this doesn’t interfere with our thriving graduate export industry.

Come on people! 1) we are a tiny speck of a country on the tip of Europe. 2) country-wise we are rated 15/16 country in the world. Being just behind countries like USA, China, Germany, UK, etc. is a decent result. Especially with the oul recession an’ all. ;-) Don’t sweat the statistics!!!

Our degrees are worth plenty and are well recognised abroad or 10s of thousands of irish would be getting skilled migrant visas. Work abroad expos wouldnt be snapping us up either.

i bet they’d be right up there on pay, i would love to compare wages with the top 10 colleges and we’d beat them there!

Is anybody out there aware of the academic level of our students in comparison to these top universities?? Junior certificate papers in Ireland are Equivalent to leaving certain level in the US!!! Our society is certainly not full of alcoholic “dense people” we as a country have a strict education system based on the fact that we are quite capable, if we were to lower our standards I’m sure our universities would be right up there, however education in Ireland is not based on competition it’s Quality over quantity.

Aoife just FYI those ridiculous college rating systems have little to do with the academic abilities or value for education of its students. It’s all politics and money. Trust.

Doesn’t surprise me. About 1 in 3 lectures I had in university had a poor grasp of the subjects they taught. If they were pushed to stray even slightly from their prepared slides they got confused.

Huge difference between these results and QS rankings. You gotta question both their methods with that level of inconsistency.

Taking a more positive view, relative to countries of a similar size we actually haven’t done too badly.

These surveys are based on lots of things including research revenue and lots of areas where scale matters. This makes it tough for universities in smaller countries.

UL is still class!

I don’t think any of Irish university students would fare well on University Challenge – majority of them wouldn’t even understand the questions. The quality of students entering university here is very low despite their 6 and 7 A1′s in Leaving Cert. The marks are hyped up and are not a fair assessment of students’ abilities. Primary and secondary schools must be made to improve their standards if our universities are ever to have a chance of getting back into the top 100.

@kerry. I should have stayed in school. I like many have voted Labour, FF, FG and PDs. I am a very unintelligent person. I know.

This ranking is not based on quality of education, but ranks universities facilities and PR teams more likely. Russian st. Petersburg or Polish Warsaw uni are not even in top 200 while they are in top of the all time winners for world team programming contest (acm) – just to name one…Average low skilled person in most east european countries is able to give right answer for what is 3+5×2 or is able to tell you square are of the room if they measure the walls, try that on same random group of people in some countries who are much higher up all these educational rankings.

Who gives a shit. Trinity has been living on past glories for years now. Thousands of Irish out here in Oz and the US working away with 3rd level education from lessor unis. Our tradesmen are the most sought after by oversees employers. I have been away from Ireland for 10 years but I hear they are coming out of collage and working in mc donalds. Nothing wrong with it just 7 years ago it was only a job for the Poles and Asians. How we have fallen hard :-(

@Frank2521: Reading the following that you posted I’d guess at a push you must be a Labour voter?

Why are so many American teachers and lecturers here – because the wages and pensions are so high. One I spoke to said her husband could afford to give up him job as the combined income in the US was much less than her salary here.

hmm did reilly go this b.a. in b.s. from one of our university’s ?

Why are so many American teachers and lecturers here – because the wages and pensions are so high. One I spoke to said her husband could afford to give up him job as the combined income in the US was much less than her salary here. Also the leaving cert system has been dumbed down to suit the Labour aganda. The dumber you are and the less well educated you are the greater chance you will vote Labour. Check the history of UK and Ireland Quinn will do his utmost to reduce teachers and increase class sizes plus change the inter Cert and the leaving cert. I despair at our future prospects and the future of education in Ireland.

This is an exercise in PR and nothing more !! Who funds this type of study and what are the categories colleges are assessed on! Somehow I don’t think it will be unbiased or objective !!

Well done university of Cape Town. 103. Beat loads of er First world universities! Just saying like

TCD ranked 110 & UCD ranked 187
I don’t believe that our colleges are ‘bad’ it’s just that some of the top ranking US colleges are light years ahead in teaching methods, knowledge transfer and outlook. The speed at which they are advancing their methods and results is leaving our colleges standing still. It’s a resources and a mind-set issue. Time for change.

These university rankings are more based on money and funding than anything else. I wouldn’t pay much heed to them.