The number of CAO courses requiring 500 or more points has jumped by more than a quarter.
Around 50 thousand offers have just been made available online in this year's first round, following last week's Leaving Cert results.
Growth in demand for places has been mirrored in areas of the economy that have been on the rise, like business and engineering, as students look to target careers after third-level.
In the University of Limerick 73 per cent of courses saw a jump in the number of points required to study them.
Professor Paul McCutcheon, Vice President of UL says a number of sectors performed particularly well.
