Patrick Lavelle | College Affairs Editor
Trinity College Dublin students have a higher chance of graduating with a first class honours or 2.1 degree than students in any of the state’s other six universities according to figures published by the Irish Times today.
Over the last 10 years, 71.7 per cent of Trinity graduates have received a 1.1 or 2.1 degree. Dublin City University (DCU) awarded the second highest rate of such degrees (64.3 per cent), followed by University College Cork (64.2 per cent), University College Dublin (55.8 per cent), NUI Galway (54.7 per cent), NUI Maynooth (53.7 per cent) and University of Limerick (50.2 per cent).
Trinity College is reported by the Irish Times to have attributed this figure to the fact that it attracted “exceptionally bright cohorts of students”.
The figure rises significantly further for certain departments within Trinity, with over 90 per cent of Trinity law graduates receiving a first or 2.1. It was also reported that only eight of the 301 students who sat psychology in Trinity between 2004 and 2013 failed to achieve a 2.1 or a first.
When looking only at the percentage of students who graduated with a first class honours degree over the past 10 years, Trinity comes third of the seven Irish universities. 16.4 per cent of Trinity students got a first, compared to 17.7 per cent in UCC and DCU, the highest nationwide, and only 11.9 per cent in UCD, the lowest.
The figures follow controversy earlier this year over comments made by Paddy Cosgrave, founder of The Web Summit, that he would accept interns with a 2.1 from Trinity, while graduates of other universities would be required to have a first.
Cosgrave expressed concern about grade inflation in higher education in Ireland saying that “a 2.1 in one university would not equate to a 2.1 in another university”.
Speaking to the Irish Times, Martin O’Grady, a lecturer at IT Tralee who started a “Stop Grade Inflation” campaign a decade ago, said the high rate of firsts and 2.1s at Trinity was understandable as “they show all the signs of getting a premium student” through the CAO. He took issue however with the wide differences between DCU and UL who had “fairly identical profiles”.
Photo by Eavan McLoughlin for The University Times
