A confidential report has disclosed alarming dropout rates at universities, especially in high-tech areas such as computers and science.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) report - seen by The Irish Times - states that 28 per cent of students drop out at NUI Maynooth, 21.4 per cent at Dublin City University and 20.5 per cent at the University of Limerick.
The HEA chairman, Dr Don Thornhill, suggests several reasons for the poor figures in some institutions. These include students choosing unsuitable courses and the financial pressures which occur in college.
It is the first detailed study of dropout or non-completion rates in universities since 1985.
Across the seven universities in the State, the highest dropout or non-completion rate is in computer studies. Of those who enter this field, over a quarter do not complete their course. In Trinity College Dublin, almost one-third fail to finish the course in computer science.
Science is also suffering from poor retention rates. For example, 42.5 per cent of students on NUI Maynooth's science course failed to finish.
DCU had high dropout or non-completion rates in biotechnology (40 per cent), applied physics (39 per cent) and applied maths (46 per cent).
The HEA report concludes that students who entered university with relatively low CAO points - based on their Leaving Certificate results - were twice as likely to drop out of university as those with high points.
The report tracks a group of students who entered university in 1992/93 and graduated over recent years.
While many courses are performing badly, Irish universities are doing well in international terms. The Republic has the second highest retention rate (83 per cent) in the OECD, bettered only by Japan.
The report says that the dropout rates on some courses have major financial implications for the State. It points out that it costs, on average, over £3,700 a year to fund a third-level place.
The report shows some institutions performing notably better than others. NUI Galway performs the best, with the lowest dropout or non-completion rate (12.9 per cent), followed by UCD (14.2), UCC (14.6) and TCD (16.2).
At the other end of the scale, NUI Maynooth has the highest drop-out rate (27.9 per cent), ahead of DCU (21.4) and the University of Limerick, where 20.5 per cent of students failed to complete their course.
The report also tracks the performance of university students in relation to their CAO points. Only 9 per cent of those securing very strong Leaving Cert results (between 440 and 560 CAO points) drop out of college. In contrast, over 20 per cent of those with lower point scores (200-375) do not complete their course of study.
There are "quite substantial differences", according to the report, in how students with low points progress when they enter different colleges. For example, about 30 per cent of students who enter NUI Maynooth and DCU with low points drop out.