Buenos Aires, Argentina — Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, has tried to dismiss the worsening budget crisis at public universities as politics as usual, a contest with his left-wing political rivals who dominate liberal campuses.
Many students at the elite University of Buenos Aires don’t feel that way, where hallways went dark, elevators froze and air conditioning stopped working in some buildings last week. The professors gave lectures to 200 people without microphones or projectors because the public university, one of the best in Latin America, could not cover its electricity bill.
“This is an unthinkable crisis,” said Valeria Añón, a 50-year-old literature professor who was protesting against Milei’s austerity measures in central Buenos Aires on Tuesday along with thousands of others. “I feel very sad for my students and for myself.”
In its quest to reach zero deficit, Milei is cutting spending throughout Argentina: closing ministries, defunding cultural centers, laying off state workers and cutting subsidies. On Monday he had something to show: he announced Argentina’s first quarterly fiscal surplus since 2008.
“We are making the impossible possible even with the majority of politics, the unions, the media and the majority of economic actors against us,” he said in a televised speech.
Crowds of university students and professors walked out of classes Tuesday in a massive show of defiance, joining thousands of protesters pouring into the city center. Some privately funded schools closed in solidarity. Protests also took over other cities in Argentina. “The university will defend itself!” the students shouted.
“We are trying to show the government that it cannot take away our right to education,” said Santiago Ciraolo, a 32-year-old social communications student who was protesting Tuesday. “Everything is at stake here.”
In a sign of the broader ideological battle at play, members of unions and leftist parties also filled the streets. Describing universities as bastions of socialism where professors indoctrinate their students, Milei has accused his political enemies of fomenting discontent. “The cognitive dissonance that brainwashing creates in public education is tremendous,” she said.
Since last July, when the fiscal year began, the 200-year-old University of Buenos Aires (UBA) has received only 8.9% of its total budget from the state, as annual inflation now hovers around 290%. . The university says that’s barely enough to keep the lights on and provide basic services at university hospitals that have already reduced capacity.
Declaring a financial emergency, the UBA warned last week that without a rescue plan, the school would close in the coming months, leaving 380,000 middle-grade students stranded. It is a shock for Argentines who consider a free, quality university education a national birthright. The UBA has a proud intellectual tradition, which has produced five Nobel Prize winners and 17 presidents.
“This university has given me access to a future, to opportunities that my family and many other people at our income level would never otherwise be able to afford,” said Alex Vargas, a 24-year-old economics student. “When you take a step back, you see how important this is to our society.”
President Milei came to power last December, inheriting an economy in ruins after years of chronic overspending and suffocating international debt. Brandishing a chainsaw during his campaign to symbolize the budget cut, he repeats a simple slogan to his compatriots reeling from budget cuts and the 50% devaluation of the peso: “There is no money.”
Overall, Argentina spends around 4.6% of its gross domestic product on education. Critics of the university system say the budget cuts are also an attempt to increase fiscal efficiency and transparency. Some want foreign students to start paying fees. Public universities are free not only for Argentinians but also for international students, and attract legions of students from all over Latin America, Spain and elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, where I am from, high-quality education is a privilege, not a basic right,” said Sofía Hernández, a 21-year-old from Bogotá, Colombia, who is studying medicine at UBA. “In Argentina there is a model that I. I wish more countries could have done it.”
The government said late Monday it would send about $24.5 million to public universities and another $12 million to keep medical centers operating. “The discussion is closed and resolved,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said Tuesday.
University officials disagreed and said the promised transfer, which they have not yet received, covers only a fraction of what they need. For the UBA, that means an annual budget cut of 61%, when inflation is taken into account.
It will also not help the income of teachers who have seen their salaries fall by more than 35% in the last four months, said Matías Ruiz, Secretary of the Treasury of the UBA. Staff salaries can be as low as $150 a month. Many teachers are juggling multiple jobs just to survive and wondering if they will receive any salary for the entire next month.
“This has an important impact on our research, on the projects and academic activities that we can carry out,” said Inés Aldao, a 44-year-old professor of Literature at the UBA. “We have had funding and salary freezes under previous right-wing governments, but these cuts are three times worse.”
Angry workers, teachers and students who snaked through the streets of the capital just hours after Milei declared economic victory from his presidential palace put the government’s precarious balancing act on split screen Tuesday.
“We are building a new era of prosperity in Argentina,” Milei said in his national address. Boasting that Argentina had posted a quarterly fiscal surplus of 0.2% of gross domestic product, the president promised the public that the pain would pay off.
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