Third-level in crisis: We have learnt nothing from past errors

After years of cuts, consultation, reports and deliberations, politics has done nothing to stem the third-level funding crisis, writes Education Correspondent Niall Murray 

There is a crisis in higher education funding, but you would be hard-pushed to believe it listening to Irish politicians.

In the last decade — until it was reversed this year — a series of annual cuts saw State investment in higher education cut by a third. This drop in funding equated to close to €500m in annual income to the seven universities, 14 institutes of technology, and the handful of other colleges also directly funded by the taxpayer.