Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of major cities nationwide on Tuesday to protest funding cuts by Argentine President Javier Milei to the public university system.
Crowds in downtown Buenos Aires marched toward the government headquarters to denounce budget shortfalls of the country’s higher education system.
Argentina’s public university system has been tuition-free since 1949 and produced five Nobel Prize laureates.
Photo: EPA
The Argentine Congress last year passed a law to fund universities’ operational costs and increase educators’ salaries in line with high inflation, but the government has not implemented the changes as it challenges the legislation in court.
Milei has slashed public education funding as part of his plan to decrease state funding in a sharp break from what he describes as decades of reckless spending that spawned corruption under his predecessors.
Tuesday’s protest gathered people of all ages and political persuasions.
Corruption scandals were also a focus of the protests, including an investigation into lavish spending by Argentine Chief of the Cabinet Manuel Adorni.
“How much does Adorni cost us?” read one of several protest signs alluding to alleged misuse of public funds.
Argentine Undersecretary for University Policies Alejandro Alvarez called the march “completely political” and said the government had compensated universities for higher operating costs.
In seeking to annul the legislation, Milei’s administration says that it fails to specify how the state would supply the mandatory funding increases in a time of harsh fiscal austerity.
The case is expected to go to the Argentine Supreme Court.
Protesters called on the nation’s highest court to “listen to the outcry throughout the country’s public squares.”
Ricardo Gelpi, rector of the University of Buenos Aires, said that steep losses in purchasing power have driven at least 580 research professors in the engineering and science departments to ditch the public system for private universities or other better-paying jobs.
“It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” said Sol Muniz, 24, a law student at the University of Buenos Aires.
“University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have,” Muniz added.
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