STUDENTS getting into college are much more likely to come from the Western seaboard counties than from any other part of the State. In the case of counties Galway, Sligo, Leitrim, Kerry, Mayo, Clare and Roscommon over 40 per cent of the relevant age group get into college.
In the case of Dublin, however, despite an embarrassment of colleges, only 33 per cent of the age group get into higher education. On the whole, students in the midlands and eastern counties have a much worse track record in terms of getting to college, with Laois at the bottom of the pile with only 31 per cent. Kilkenny, Offaly and Monaghan also have very low college entry rates.
There tends to be a certain correlation between willingness to consider the RTC/DTT sector and high college entry. Dublin, for example, has the lowest RTC/DIT entry rate of all counties (37 per cent), while Leitrim and Roscommon have the highest at 64 per cent and 61 per cent.
Perhaps grants have something to do with it: only 32 per cent of college entrants from Dublin have a grant, while the proportion of entrants in receipt of a grant from Galway is 63 per cent, from Leitrim 74 per cent and from Roscommon 70 per cent.
Dublin college entrants have by far and away the lowest proportion of non-grant aided students. Significantly, the next lowest - 13 per cent higher - is Wicklow.
Overall, college entrants are very parochial with the highest proportion of entrants coming in most cases from the county where the college is based.
Cork seems to be the most parochial of all with 1,330 of UCC's 2,084 entrants coming from County Cork and a huge 774 in the case of Cork RTC's 1,076 entrants. Cork RTC has only 12 entrants from Dublin, for example, compared to 56 Dubliners entering Waterford RTC.
Carlow RTC actually takes more of its students from Co Kildare than from Co Carlow and Maynooth takes more from Dublin than from Kildare. Tallaght RTC has virtually nobody from outside of Dublin (remember these are all 1992 figures) and Athlone RTC takes in more students from Co Galway than from Co Westmeath - despite Galway having its own RTC.
Teacher training provides the most fascinating geographical variables of all. Over half of all those entering national teacher training come from Munster, with Leinster now accounting for one quarter and Connaught only 16 per cent. Interestingly, the Church of Ireland College of Education (in Dublin) did not have one single entrant from Dublin in the year the study was undertaken.
The College of Surgeons, by contrast, took 28 of its 45 Irish entrants from Dublin, four from Cork, and none from 15 counties in the Republic including Galway - have they no upper professional families in Galway?
