A group of people studying in a cold, dark room, barely lit by a candle. That medieval scene that is at the origin of the modern university threatens to become the immediate future of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), besieged, like all public faculties in Argentina, by the funding cuts being carried out by the ultra-government. Javier Milei. The UBA, the largest university institution in the country, the training ground for five Nobel Prize winners, and where more than 347,000 students study today, has just declared a budget emergency. “I have never seen an adjustment like the one being made now. The situation is very distressing,” says the vice-rector of the university, Emiliano Yacobitti. It is still unknown whether the UBA will be able to continue operating beyond the middle of the year.
Among other measures to combat the deficit in public accounts, the Milei Government extended to 2024 the state budget of the previous year, voted by Congress at the end of 2022. Along the way, interannual inflation reached (from March to March) 287.9%. In the case of the UBA, the extended budget consists of 121,000 million pesos (about 140 million dollars, according to the official quote). The vast majority of these resources, almost 90%, are allocated to salaries of teachers and non-teaching workers. The rest finances operating expenses: payment of services, maintenance of classrooms and laboratories, connectivity, insurance, purchase of supplies, books and publications.
“The currently allocated budget for operating expenses constitutes a cut in real terms of 80%. That is, for every 10 pesos that the UBA had in March 2023, today it has two," the university detailed last week, when declaring an economic emergency. What does this imply in the daily life of the institution? “Shortly we will not be able to pay the electricity bills that, from April of last year to April of this year, increased by 577%,” explains Vice-Rector Yacobitti. “We are going to have to stop using the elevators. Libraries will have to operate only as long as there is daylight,” he adds.
No works, no repairs
The budget crisis most affects academic units that face high costs in teaching supplies for laboratory practices, such as the faculties of Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, or Exact and Natural Sciences. But not only. “It is unsustainable for us to open and keep the buildings in operation, there are no resources for maintenance expenses, nor for basic issues such as buying cleaning products or making plumbing repairs. There is a total interruption of the infrastructure improvement works that were planned,” summarizes Ricardo Manetti, dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. “I have been living university life for 40 years, we have been through many complex moments, but I don't remember any like this. There is enormous deterioration and there is not even dialogue with the Government.”
The other large sector affected is the hospitals it manages. The UBA has six highly complex university hospitals, where not only teaching and research is carried out, but also where the population is cared for: last year more than half a million people visited its offices. “For the health function of the university, the Government did not even send us the extended budget. We have received zero pesos. If there is no prompt response, in the second semester the hospitals will not be able to continue functioning,” warns Yacobitti.
The salaries of professors and non-teaching staff also fell sharply: the UBA rectorate estimates that salaries lost 36% of their purchasing power to inflation in the last four months. For the teaching unions, the loss is even greater and exceeds 50 points. “60% of non-teaching workers belong to the lowest ranks and are earning below the poverty line,” says the vice-rector of the university. Salary negotiations with the State have been interrupted since February.
“Our teachers are excellent, they can teach and research at any university in the world. If this adjustment continues, the best will leave. Even if the university could continue operating, this will have a negative impact on the quality of education,” explains Abril Marcolongo, president of the student center of the Faculty of Exact Sciences.
“Let's take care of what works”
In the public campaign that the UBA is carrying out to demand a budgetary thaw, the academic quality of the institution stands out precisely. “Let's take care of what works” is the slogan, designed to counter Milei's ultraliberal speech, which defends a minimal State and which he defines as “a criminal organization.” The UBA is among the five best universities in Latin America according to the QS Global Ranking, the Shanghai Ranking and the Ranking Center for World University. At the same time, it is among the 100 best universities in the world, according to the QS Ranking. In recent days, the QS Ranking by subject indicated that six university disciplines entered the world top 50: Modern languages, Anthropology, Law, Petroleum engineering, Sociology and Art and design. The UBA authorities insist that these achievements were achieved with a budget that, before the current adjustment, was already low compared to the resources of other institutions in the region: the University of São Paulo (Brazil) had in 2023 a investment of 15,000 dollars per student per year and the National Autonomous University of Mexico with 7,968 dollars, while the UBA - they report - had 1,123 dollars per student.
The demands of the academic community have been growing in intensity, not only at the UBA but throughout the university system, with strikes, demonstrations and public classes. Until now, the Government's response has been that, "in a context of restrictions, as a result of the current economic emergency", universities must "improve the way they spend and invest", in the words of the Secretary of Education of the Nation, Carlos Torrendell, during the last plenary session of the National Interuniversity Council. He also promised a 70% boost in funds for operating expenses, an amount that the rectors considered meager. In this context, the unions of university teachers and workers, the student federations and the academic authorities have called for a national march on Tuesday, April 23 in defense of the public university, which will have its epicenter in the City of Buenos Aires and replicas in different places. points of the country. “When the Government proposes abandoning the university, it is attacking the place where the improvement of the Nation is thought about, where the future of public policies, the economy, laws, culture, education is debated with a critical perspective. , health...”, says Dean Manetti: “The attack is on all of this.”