The new figures from the HEA make grim reading for the academic community at NUI Maynooth. Their institution has the dubious honour of finishing top of the league table for non-completion rates across the university sector.
It is not a pleasant place to be. With growing competition to attract the best and brightest at third level, the news that almost 28 per cent of your students are not completing their courses could not be more unwelcome.
While a vote of no confidence by so many students is damaging enough, the university's record was also considerably worse than others. DCU, which was the second worst, was still 6.5 per cent behind NUI Maynooth.
The university's poor showing is surprising in that it has a smaller student body than its larger neighbours such as DCU, UCD and Trinity College. It also has far fewer faculties and courses.
If there is any university which should be able to make students feel secure within a close-knit and intimate community, it should be NUI Maynooth. One would expect it to have few problems with dissatisfied students when its modest size and streamlined nature would appear to be perfect ingredients for a classic university experience. Not so, according to the figures.
More than 42 per cent of science students, for example, drop out. They obviously leave for different reasons, but this figure suggests there is a serious structural problem with the courses.
While science is in trouble in many colleges (and in schools), NUI Maynooth is almost 10 per cent worse than DCU in second place.
In arts, the university also finishes embarrassingly at the top, with 23.4 per cent of students dropping out. This compares with an average across the universities of 17.6 per cent.
Its dropout rate in finance is a respectable 13.4 per cent. While this is above the average for the seven universities (11.6 per cent), it is well behind the rates at DCU (17.9 per cent) and the University of Limerick (20.7 per cent).
While the rate for arts courses is alarming, the science figures shape the picture formed of the university in the report. When asked to comment on its general problems, the university told the HEA that mathematics was posing serious challenges for its students - both school-leavers and mature students.
Because the subject tends to play a major role in most science courses, weakness in maths is likely to be one factor behind the science dropout rates, although the link is not directly in the university's response to the HEA.
The response dwells on more general trends. For example, it points out that 25 per cent of its students "originate from within the lower socio-economic groups" who, because they have few friends or peers to base their college experience on, find it difficult to cope.
While the university is often commended for its record on access for marginalised groups, it is not much use if students from these groups fail to get their much sought-after qualifications.
To remedy the problems the university has appointed Prof Peter Carr to the new post of academic counsellor to co-ordinate student support and "to provide a bridgehead for students finding difficulties in adapting to life in third level".
In its response to the HEA, the university discloses that in a recent internal survey on the dropout problem, almost 36 per cent of those who opted out could supply no reason for doing so.
The university, however, is not placing the blame on students. It says department heads are being asked to reflect on their "teaching strategies" so they can communicate more effectively when lecturing big groups of students.