Universities and institutes of technology were last night coming to terms with the new era of falling points and escalating competition for the reduced pool of Leaving Certificate applicants.
In NUI Galway, where the majority of CAO degree courses experienced a reduction in points required, the commerce with German course suffered the most significant downturn in interest, decreasing by 140 points from 375 points to 235 points this year.
Prof James Browne, registrar and vice president of NUI Galway, recognised that while interest and points levels for arts, business, law and engineering remained buoyant, the college was particularly concerned at the numbers applying for science and information technology.
He said college authorities, including NUI Galway's, were "worried" and "unhappy" with science applications and would be emphasising to Government the need to invest in science at second level. In the case of the commerce with German course, he said that small specialist courses can often incur the greatest points decreases.
Other universities, such as NUI Maynooth, UCC and UCD, also incurred significant decreases in points levels. The most popular course in the State - arts at UCD - which has previously had a failure rate of nine per cent among first year students, saw its points decrease from 360 to 350 yesterday.
In contrast to the general decrease in course points, Dublin Business School, where degree courses cost €4,650 per annum, witnessed substantial points increases across its courses.
Accounting and finance increased by 65 points, while psychology and business in human resource management increased by 50 points. A spokeswoman for the school said that fees were no longer an issue for parents and students, due to the tax relief available and the option of paying the fees in instalments.
In addition, parents of students attending fee-paying second level schools often find that the third-level fees are less. The spokeswoman added that for Dublin-based families who prefer to have their their son or daughter studying and living at home, the fees of €4,650 outweigh the costs involved in sending a child to college outside of Dublin.
Despite the increasing competition between universities to attract the same cohort of students to similar courses, institutes of technology such as IT Cork, IADT Dún Laoghaire and IT Galway-Mayo, experienced an increase in demand and points.
However, institutes such as IT Waterford, IT Carlow and DIT incurred significant decreases in points levels. A spokesman for DIT said that computer courses were particularly affected by the decreasing numbers of students applying.
Against the national trend of declining entry levels, more than 50 per cent of University of Limerick's programmes increased or maintained their entry standards, according to Prof Don Barry, vice president and registrar.
"We are delighted that our physiotherapy programme has proved so popular with students and it now has the highest entry level for any such course in the country," he said.