Trinity College has dropped out of the annual global ranking of MBA courses because it is attracting too few students.

The Trinity programme, run in conjunction with the Irish Management Institute (IMI), failed to feature in the 2008 list of the top 100 programmes published yesterday by the Financial Times. In 2007, Trinity's course jumped 15 places to rank 70th.

The only Irish course to feature this year is UCD's MBA programme, which remained static in 98th position.

The FT rankings are generally based on courses with a minimum of 30 participants. Trinity was evaluated previously with classes of 25. However, the numbers taking the Trinity MBA dipped to 24 in 2004 - the class which was surveyed for this year's rankings. Continuing enrolment issues at Trinity, which relies heavily on overseas applicants for its MBA programme, mean that it will not be eligible to appear in the global rankings list until 2010 at the earliest.

Prof Tom Begley, dean of UCD Business Schools, said he was delighted that its programme had made the top 100 list for the ninth successive year. "At international level, business education is becoming more and more competitive, and it is a credit to everyone at the school that we are once again benchmarked against the best schools in the world."