Trying to Save a Pot of Gold? The Cheapest Universities in Ireland for International Students
- Originally published
- Last updated on February 24th, 2024 at 11:47 am
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American students often visit the Emerald Isle to reconnect with their roots or explore its verdant cliffs and medieval castles. While you’re checking them out, you may be able to study for your entire undergraduate degree while taking in the sights – and save some cash while you’re there. To save the most, look for the cheapest universities in Ireland.
We analyzed 9 major universities and colleges in Ireland, and most are in or near the capital of Dublin. It’s an expensive city by any world standard, but that doesn’t mean university life is unaffordable in Ireland.
It can even be cheap, especially if you compare the average tuition nationwide to American private and out-of-state school norms. We wanted to know find out which were the cheapest universities in Ireland, taking into account tuition fees, but also the cost of living and rent in each city.
What are the cheapest universities in Ireland for international students?
The cheapest university in Ireland for international students is the University of Limerick. It has the best rent among all other Irish university cities and the 2nd best tuition rate (~$16,465 USD per year).
We looked at:
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- University of Galway (Guide, Ranking)
- University of Limerick (Guide, Ranking)
- University College Cork (Guide, Ranking)
- Dublin City University (Guide, Ranking)
- Maynooth University (Guide, Ranking)
- Technological University Dublin (Guide, Ranking)
- Trinity College Dublin (Guide, Ranking)
- Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Guide)
- University College Dublin (Guide, Ranking)
Note: We Did Not Look at Private Colleges
Ireland has only a few public universities, but many other technical and private schools you can explore.
We didn’t include non-Times-ranked private schools like Griffith College in our analysis. Be aware that there are off-the-beaten-track options in Ireland and that undergraduate students aren’t completely limited by the prices and programs of the universities we included.
There’s still more choice for international students looking into smaller and private universities.
Among the public universities in Ireland, here are the cheapest colleges in Ireland for international students ranked on a map:
The Overall Cheapest Universities in Ireland
We combined the cost of a 4-year honors degree (akin to an American bachelor’s degree you can use as a platform to apply to graduate school) with the cost of living index and the rent index in the four cities where you’ll find Irish universities: Dublin, Galway, Limerick, and Cork.
Over the course of your degree, where will foreign students save the most money on higher education?
The Cheapest Overall Is the University of Limerick
Brush up on your obscene rhymes and save some dough at the University of Limerick.
Limerick is a big student city. With 200,000 people, 24,000 of whom are students, the city’s 2,500 international students find plenty to do. But here’s the best part: it won’t cost nearly what it costs to do it in Dublin.
Beating out the more affordable Dublin universities with slightly cheaper tuition, the University of Limerick combines near-bottom tuition with the cheapest rent and cost of living in a university town in Ireland. That makes it one of the low-cost universities in Ireland that packs a punch the whole 4 years. Living in Cork, Galway, or Dublin would be spendier, so if you’re looking for a town that you can make you own, Limerick is it.
Not only that, students who come to Ireland to study and find themselves at the University of Limerick discover its welcoming to international students as well as their bank accounts. It’s been voted #1 globally for student experience, and international students reap a lot of the rewards of a safe, welcoming campus. Bonus: the International Student Society can help you make friends from all over the world.
Technological University Dublin is the Cheapest Tuition in Ireland
For tuition alone, no one beats Technological University Dublin.
A 4-year program in business, social science, or biomolecular science will set you back €54,000 ($59,020 USD). Opt for architecture and your degree goes up to $64,002. But consider it a bargain. At #2 Maynooth, your comparable bachelor of science in biological and biomedical sciences will cost you $6660 more in total.
What’s the rub? Dublin’s cost of living is the highest in the country. The university is a consolidated mix of schools in Ireland, formerly institutes of technology, all now under the same umbrella. Most are already on the same campus at Grangegorman on the northwest side of Dublin. That might give some students a respite from the prices in the most in-demand neighborhoods of Dublin’s center. But it’s still a trendy city where high demand creates high prices. Low tuition universities can’t always make up for it.
Nevertheless, Technological University Dublin is the destination for international students focused on low tuition. The university offers non-EU students the best deal on classes anywhere.
Royal College of Surgeons Ireland will Take a Bite out of your Bank Account
On the flip side, your wallet hates Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. To be fair, the medical programs are 6 years long, so that’s a hefty extra tuition bill. But RCSI would still be #1 if you only attended 4 years. Just compare its annual tuition of $63,556 to runner-up University College Dublin’s annual $23,037.
That’s over 2.7 times as much, doctor.
University College Dublin is the Most Expensive (non-medical) Bachelor’s Degree
Medical training aside, University College Dublin leaves the biggest liberal arts dent in your wallet in the entire Emerald Isle. Sure, it’s a lot cheaper than attending Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, but it’s still a tough bill to pay.
Its tuition will set you back about $2,400 more over the course of your degree compared to #3 Trinity College Dublin. And its Dublin location means you’ll pay more for food, housing, and a great Friday night out than anywhere else in the country.
The Rest of Ireland’s Top Universities with Low Tuition
How do Ireland’s other universities stack up? Here are the scores for all of Ireland’s universities.
Where did these scores come from? We converted cost of living percentiles in Ireland to percentages with 100 the best for students (the lowest cost of living or rent). Then we converted tuitions in Ireland to percentile ranks, 0 being the most expensive tuition in Ireland and 100 being the cheapest (and therefore scoring an A+ for students). We averaged these numbers out of ten. Because of rounding, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin look tied, but in reality, Trinity edged out the competition.
We only considered Ireland’s 9 public universities.
Because Ireland is a highly developed country, cost of living is high regardless of where you land. That’s reflected in cost of living and rent scores that top out at a 6.4 (that’s like the best score in the class being a “D”). If that were your math test, it’d hardly be a stellar performance.
But compared to other choices, these numbers do change quite a bit, and astute, penny-pinching students can use them to score a bargain and understand the added costs of choosing an area like Dublin, with its current housing crisis, for their undergraduate degree studies.
Honorable Mention: Maynooth University
Get into the coveted upper-tier universities averaging a score over 5 (cheaper than average!), by attending Maynooth University, an idyllic grey stone, castle-esque campus on the western outskirts of Dublin. It takes a hit in our rankings for being too near the Dublin metro area, but study a map and note that you won’t be in the action-packed city center (by any means).
That means housing isn’t so congested in Maynooth, and the atmosphere is distinctly suburban, with more room for students to spread out and find housing on the cheap.
And until Dublin Technological University edged it out in this year’s tuition update, it was the lowest in Ireland. We think it’s a gem that’s undervalued for its affordability.
Trinity College Dublin: High Price, High Value
Trinity College Dublin is the most famous and academically prestigious public university in Ireland. It runs a joint program with American Ivy Leaguer Columbia University. It has educated Ireland’s luminaries since its establishment in the 16th century, from Jonathan Swift to Bram Stoker of Dracula fame. In university rankings, TCD wins a spot at #161 in the world (and the 17th most international).
It’s also Ireland’s most international university, making it an appealing choice for students from outside Ireland who want plenty of company as well as a diversity of classroom viewpoints and an administration that knows how to guide international students through the application and adjustment process.
However, that prestige comes at a price.
Trinity is only slightly below the overall most expensive University College Dublin for tuition. Further, its center-city location begs the question of whether students who attend Trinity are equally unable to find affordable housing. After all, being blocks from Dublin’s tourist sites isn’t the ticket to cheap digs (we looked up the menu at Dublin’s famous Temple Bar, and draft beers are $8.71 USD).
While the lifestyle is extravagant, so are the opportunities. Trinity College is among the top universities in the world (once ranked close to 50th overall). It has over 250 study abroad partnerships. The school offers degree programs and renowned faculty you won’t find anywhere else. And students pay for the reputation they’ll inherit as graduates when the leave behind their venerable classrooms for the rest of their lives.
How to Gain Admission to Affordable Universities
In Ireland, start with the Central Admissions Office (CAO), the portal where international and home-grown students will apply to the universities of their choice.
At Trinity College Dublin, CAO won’t cut it, so you’ll have to apply directly. The same is true of Dublin City College, though some programs like nursing are eligible to use CAO. Royal College of Surgeons? Nope. They have a third-party organization handling U.S. and Canadian applications.
While the application process gets more hectic in Ireland than in the neighboring UK, it also means international students are less limited in the number of applications they make. They’ll have a better chance of making their dream of education in Ireland come true.
Keep Hunting for Cheap Universities in Ireland
Check out the basics about the college experience in Ireland. And if the gift of Blarney doesn’t turn out to be right for you, you can look for other cheap colleges across the globe. No matter where you land, you’ll know you’re saving precious dollars while getting a great experience.
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Jessica Share
Jessica is the writer, Ph.D., and mom-of-an-abroad-student-in-the-UK at the helm of College Abroad Guides. When she's not asking college students where the coolest place to hang out in their city is, she's figuring out how she can make $60 imported Greek oregano potato chips and £50 British bacon potato chips appear on her doorstep for the cost of a local bag of Lay's.
