Colleges in Scotland are the Cinderellas of the nation's education system.
Despite playing a vital role in society and the economy, they remain hugely underappreciated and under-resourced.
The Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr put it more bluntly last month when he said the further education sector had been the victim of a "hatchet job" by the SNP government in recent years.
Because when college budgets get squeezed, they have found fairy godmothers in short supply.
Unlike colleagues in the university sector, they are less able to boost their coffers with appeals to affluent alumni or by sending vice-principals jetting off around the world to drum up investment from thousands of fee-paying students from overseas.
Instead, they rely largely on a slice of a government education budget, but usually find themselves behind schools and universities in the pecking order.
