Trinity College Dublin tops the Sunday Times Irish university league table for the seventh year in succession but University College Dublin, its nearest rival geographically and academically, has closed the gap to just four points.

Trinity, the oldest university in Ireland, tops the rankings in just one of the six measures we use to calculate our league table. It attracted students with the highest number of Leaving Certificate points, which — in a table that rewards the ability to attract well-qualified entrants above all else — enabled it to retain the overall lead.

Trinity ranks joint third nationally with NUI Galway, our University of the Year, for the proportion of students graduating with a first or 2:1. They had 68% getting top grades, but were beaten by University College Cork and University College Dublin, where the figures were 72% and 71% respectively. The lowest scorers — with 42% achieving a first or 2:1 — were IT Tralee and IT Tallaght.

Overall, the number of students getting one of the top grades increased again, fuelling claims that third-level marking is becoming more generous. Five years ago, 48% of students at the 22 main third-level institutions got a first or 2:1; this year the figure is 58%.

NUI Maynooth was the clear winner again on competitive research income gained per tutor. Academics at the Kildare university generated €138,981 each on average.

A gulf remains between the republic’s universities and the institutes of technology, with all but three ITs (Tallaght, Waterford and Dundalk) earning less than €30,000 per head of academic staff from research, although most see themselves as teaching rather than research centres.

Dublin IT, however, trounced the universities with a dropout rate of only 8%, compared with their 18% average. Limerick IT has the worst record, with almost a third of entrants not completing after five years, followed by Cork IT and IT Tallaght.

However, retention is improving as graduate unemployment soars because of the recession. The highest jobless rate has leapt to 23%. But there is little difference in this measure between the performance of universities and the institutes (see page 4).

Times recommends

• Students face big rise in university fees
• Students to rate lecturers online
• Lord heads team to look at raising tuition fees