The Union of Students in Ireland, which claims to represent some 200,000 students, has called on its members not to vote for Fianna Fáil.
USI, which is represented in about 35 third-level colleges, said students should vote for any party except Fianna Fáil.
USI president Mr Richard Hammond said: "The current Fianna Fáil-led Government has consistently failed the students of Ireland over the last five years and have done so again in their manifesto. Every other major party has promised badly needed reform for students, but Fianna Fail have not".
The USI has been sharply critical of the current Minister for Education, Dr Woods, in the last year and its pre-election statement, agreed by the union's officer board, follows this pattern.
Over 50,000 leaflets spelling out where the parties stand on student issues are being sent out to third-level colleges in the next few days. This leaflet will claim Fianna Fáil has achieved little.
"Fianna Fáil has ignored and contributed to the steady creation of a new class divide in Irish society, between those with easy access to education and those with difficult or no access. Thus if students are to cast their votes on the basis of each of the party's manifesto commitments alone, then it is clear that they would vote for anybody but Fianna Fáil," said Mr Hammond.
USI has highlighted four issues:
... A better grant for more students;
A concerted effort to replace "slum housing" with purpose-built residences for students;
The return of the medical card to students;
The extension of full partnership rights to same-sex couples.
Mr Hammond said Fianna Fail had proposed virtually nothing to deal with these issues.
"Fianna Fáil have repeated their election slogan throughout the their current campaign 'A lot done, more to do,' but in the context of third-level education this can only be read to mean a lot of damage done - more neglect to come", Mr Hammond said.
"The cost of student accommodation has increased by an astonishing 117 per cent in the past four years, yet Ireland still languishes far behind the EU average in terms of on-campus accommodation provision, with our near neighbours in the UK providing over four times the rate of purpose-built student accommodation", he added.