For safety, students are required to clamp down their work before any drilling.
The work is usually held in a drill vise, once they tighten the nuts, the vise invariably shifts a bit, being able to adjust in the X/Y a few thou would be ideal.
A "proper" general-purpose drillpress vise does not have this problem... because is not affixed to the table to begin with.
It is allowed to "float" into alignment with the hole the drill is "generating". It NEEDS to be able to float. Because a drillpress is not a mill.
See "safety vise" or "float-lock vise".
They can clamp the WORK. "Directly."
Or they can clamp a(nother) vise or a tilting vise or table - X-Y included... or a complex fixture plate.
"Entire", even. With "drill bushings", even.
Those things used to place holes accurately and repeatably. Because a drillpress cannot. Not without help. An X-Y table is not that help.
One, or a pair, of (anti) "torque" control rods or flat bar/rail run through holes on the vise back to a pivot or collar free to rotate about the column. Or a pivot NOT on the column prevent rotation.
In use, the work and vise may be slid along the rod or bar. The rod's pivot allows swing.
Between those two axis of movement, a pilot hole or a punch mark may be aligned directly under the drill point both rapidly and accurately. One after another, after another.
AS the drill bites, it tries to rotate the vise.
But cannot.
The rod does not permit ROTATION. Only positioning.
Cheap cheerful, dead-simple, and has been in-use for easily a hundred years.
Including in our school shop, 1950's onward!
Here's how easy it is to use:
What is a Float Lock Vise Tips 492 tubalcain - YouTube
Or to make:
Float Lock Vise
Or simply add a rod to an existng vise of ANY type. That's so cheap and easy I JFDI.
Or "buy some today":
Wahlstrom Float Lock Drill Press Vises - Penn Tool Co., Inc
They have competition. I did say "easy?"
Every bit as accurate as a drillpress can actually
deliver, too.
A drillpress is NEITHER OF a jig bore nor a mill. Nor will a more precise X-Y table make it into either one.
If you NEED those machines, acquire them.
Then USE each
in its designed realm.
Be safer, happier, faster, and more productive.
2CW. Two mills. Three drillpresses. No accidents.