The university presidents have raised the pressure on the Government for more funding with that impressive submission to Ministers on the proposed reform of both undergraduate and post-graduate education.
It is clear that their patience is about to snap. The seven presidents are furious. They are being asked to muddle through with inadequate funding while the Government continues its lofty rhetoric about world-class education.
The presidents are fed up with what some see as this hollow rhetoric. But have they also given up on the Department of Education?
Some third-level figures see Marlborough Street as the "Department for teachers and schools" - despite a very constructive recent meeting with secretary general Brigid McManus.
Increasingly, the universities are concentrating their fire on the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Micheál Martin and, critically, the Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen (right).
The Minister for Finance has put it up to the universities. He has told them to explain how the additional investment they want will deliver more jobs and greater investment. Having responded to this challenge, the universities now hope Cowen will deliver for them in the Budget.
As the bookies might say it is too close to call in the INTO race to succeed Catherine Byrne as deputy general secretary.
INTO branches across the State have been voting, and at present Limerick rugby devotee Tom O'Sullivan has edged ahead of Noel Ward with Billy Sheehan in third. The 25,000 members of the INTO will cast their votes shortly.
Interesting to see Paul Haran - the former secretary general of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment - appointed as principal of UCD's new College of Business and Law.
As the new-look UCD News notes, Haran was "instrumental in the development and implementation of policies that contributed directly to the creation of the Celtic Tiger". His appointment represents a real coup for the college.
A sign of the times: in the past year, the well-regarded Dundalk Institute of Technology has been able to recruit top-class researchers from Queen's University Belfast.
The researchers have opted for the Dundalk campus because they, apparently, enjoy better resources and more academic freedom.
Dublin third-level colleges now regularly receive scores of applications from lecturers in the North and Britain.
All is fine until they hear about property prices in the capital.
Got any education gossip? E-mail us, in confidence, at teacherspet@irish-times.ie
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sandbox.irishtimes/ZNXTZ2DRXNFU5MTNZFDVCVJJNE.png)