Professor Emer Smyth:

It tends to be a complex interaction between those two factors. In terms of growing up in Ireland, when we asked young people how they ranked different factors, the course itself was the highest ranked, and this was followed by the perceived quality of the institution. Other factors then come in, such as where people can live, wanting to leave their area to have a better college experience, etc. The difference between mobility within Ireland, I suppose, and mobility between North and South is that we have those institutional constraints.