New study ranks Wexford as third best university town in Ireland

While Wexford may be patiently waiting to see construction begin on a new state of the art South East Technological University (SETU) campus at Killeens, it remains a university town with students still attending the current campus at St Peter’s College.

In fact, according to a recent study carried out by online learning company Preply, Wexford is the third best university town in Ireland, coming in just behind Kilkenny and Derry, which took top spot.

The study examined a variety of factors including affordable living costs and rents; cafés, parks and nightlife and strong job markets with high salaries and low unemployment rates.

According to Preply, “although Wexford’s economy is at the lower end of the spectrum, it's compensated by a solid affordability score of 87”.

Wexford also received a social score of 61, which was more than top-ranked Derry (51) and had an overall score of 63 – level with Kilkenny, which just edged ahead with a higher social and economy score, and just 5 behind Derry.

While one would assume that a chronic lack of affordability would have Dublin at the bottom of the heap, it was Waterford that finished just below the capital as the worst university city/town.

It was stated that “economic hurdles may overshadow Waterford’s allure for students searching for the most suitable university town experience”.

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