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In the era of free fees, paying for your third-level education may seem a strange choice to make. Yet thousands of students do so every year and the sector reports strong growth. Louise Holdenlooks at how Ireland's private education market managed the boom

When the annual CAO auction comes around, about one-third of all students are told they haven't got a place on the course they applied for. Many more hadn't even bother listing their dream course in the first place because they had known they would never get the points they needed to study law, medicine, journalism or other sought-after professions.