Buenos Aires, Argentina – Despite protests across Argentina on Wednesday, President Javier Milei today vetoed a law that would have provided more funding for higher education, citing his zero budget deficit targets.
In an official statement released hours before the veto, the president’s office said: “It’s time for lawmakers to realize they can’t use taxpayer dollars for demagogic populism…the right place for the debate about college funding is during the debate.” for the national budget for 2025.”
Educators were counting on the law’s increased funding to help offset inflation of up to 200% over the past year.
In Wednesday’s protests, teachers, students, workers, unions and politicians took to the streets of Buenos Aires and other cities in support of the teachers. They demanded that lawmakers override the impending presidential veto and force the government to properly fund higher education.
“This year was very different; there were many teacher strikes, many days without classes,” said Agostina, a psychology student and the daughter of two university teachers who were at the protest in Buenos Aires. Argentina reports. “They are mistreating public universities, the government talks about ‘fake students’, while teachers earn under $200 a month.”
Last year, Milei ran for president with sensational promises to cut benefits only for “The Caste” — a derisive term he uses for Argentina’s political elite, an idea similar to the former president’s draining of the “swamp.” United States, Donald Trump.
But once in office, Milei used the country’s rising inflation from previous years to cut spending wherever possible. The cuts fell mainly on pensioners and canceled infrastructure projects. Higher education was another casualty. During the first half of 2024, his liberal government slashed the budget universities need to keep the lights on, provoking mass protests in April.
“During the first semester there was a kind of interruption; the lights did not come on during the day and the elevators were closed. It was quite a sad sight,” recalled Eva, a communications student who also marched in the Argentine capital on Wednesday, who preferred to give only her first name. Like many of her peers, she doesn’t expect classes to return to normal next year. “It’s an ongoing war, the government is waging a culture war that will force us to take to the streets for a long time to defend basic rights such as public education,” she said. Argentina reports.
General Confederation of Labor (CGT) through X.
Reportedly in the tens of thousands, Wednesday’s march had a lower turnout than April’s, which drew at least 500,000 people across the country.
Milei’s cabinet spent the days leading up to this week’s protest trying to delegitimize it with claims of “fabricated students” and denouncing universities’ reluctance to submit to audits.
After that, Milei’s supporters called for the presence of opposition politicians such as Sergio Massa and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who challenged him in last year’s elections, as well as union leaders. “Do not allow yourself to be politically manipulated by the coup leaders,” Milei wrote in X. “Public universities are not in danger; reward is,” the president posted on Instagram, referring to “Caste.”
The struggle to finance education in Argentina
Teacher and staff compensation has been an ongoing issue in Argentina’s education system for decades. Institutions like the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), among the world’s top-ranked universities, rely heavily on ad honorem and underpaid lecturers to function.
“Making a living from public university alone is not an option,” explained Xisiela, an adjunct professor in UBA’s social studies faculty. After years of teaching for free, she now earns $128 a month for 10 hours of lessons a week. Like most of her colleagues, this is not her only job. Teachers can’t take more hours, she said, because then they wouldn’t be able to get another job to pay the bills. “The situation in 2023 was not good and you could not live on that salary; now it’s drastic,” added Giselle.
“I have colleagues who have had to move back in with their parents, or far away from their workplace, because they couldn’t afford it,” said Pablo, an assistant and technician at UBA’s veterinary faculty. “Some have left and taken other jobs.”
(Both UBA employees preferred that we not publish their last names for fear of workplace retribution.)
Students and teachers are concerned that the government is cutting spending to empty public universities or even privatize them.
“The president said he’s ‘a mole who wants to destroy the state from the inside.’ So maybe he wants to privatize [colleges]Pablo said. “I don’t think we’ll allow it, though.”
