In a trend similar to those happening at other universities, Schroder said the Games Graphics Programming degree, which was introduced two years ago, is proving to be very popular and student entry has doubled since the program's inception.

RMIT's least popular degree this year is the Software Engineering Degree, which includes an industry internship year. However, it does have the highest entry cut-off score.

"This is unfortunate as students who graduate from this degree are generally the most sought after by industry. Last year, we had more software engineering industry internship places than students available to undertake work," Schroder said.

Bucking the downwards trend experienced by most universities, Deakin University's School of Engineering and Information Technology has reported a consistent level of student demand. In 2004 it had 1067 undergraduate students which grew to 1157 in 2005 and dropped by only one this year.

Head of Engineering and Information Technology, Wanlei Zhou said Deakin's close ties with the industry made it a popular choice.