By Natalia Kidd and Sebastián Rodríguez Mora
Buenos Aires (EFE).- A massive march in Buenos Aires, with similar protests in other Argentine cities, took place on Tuesday to demand that Javier Milei’s government allocate funds to public universities. The institutions are being severely strained by the government’s austerity measures and its failure to comply with the public higher education funding law.
Hundreds of thousands of students, professors, administrators, and non-teaching staff from Argentina’s public universities, supported by unions and opposition parties, filled the streets around the campuses before marching to Plaza de Mayo, in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Argentine executive branch.
Under the slogan «For education, public universities, and national science,» the mobilization in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities primarily demanded compliance with the public university funding law, which the government refuses to implement.
According to organizers, one and a half million people mobilized across the country on Tuesday.
«These are Argentines demanding that professors and workers in the public university system can live with dignity from their work. The public university is the main tool for social mobility in our country. This government is gutting quality public education,» Emiliano Yacobitti, vice-rector of the prestigious University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina’s largest university, told EFE.
Since taking office in late 2023, the ultraliberal Javier Milei has implemented severe austerity measures that have undermined the universities’ budget. According to a report from the Ibero-American Center for Research in Science, Technology, and Innovation (Ciicti), it fell from 0.718% of the GDP in 2023 to 0.428% this year, its lowest level since 1989.
In 2024 and 2025, Congress approved two laws requiring the executive branch to allocate more funds to universities, but Milei vetoed them.
The 2025 veto was overturned by Parliament, but the government still refuses to apply the standard, despite court rulings obliging it to do so, which the government has appealed to the Supreme Court.
The drastic budget cut has resulted in a sharp deterioration of salaries (in many cases, below the poverty line), infrastructure, a lack of educational materials, professor resignations, student dropout, and difficulties maintaining the public hospitals that depend on the universities.
«We receive patients from all over the country. Doctors can’t operate due to a lack of supplies. The lack of budget affects the training of doctors and nurses. This impacts the entire country because this hospital trains professionals who then go to the farthest corners of Argentina,» Karen Rivero Carrizo, an administrative worker at the Hospital de Clínicas, which is part of the UBA, told EFE.
Future at stake
Many high school students also participated in the mobilization, fearing for their future access to public university education, which has been free in Argentina since 1949, amidst the economic crisis.
Free tuition has enabled significant portions of the population to pursue higher education in Argentina, where approximately two million individuals attend one of the 57 public universities, many of which have significant national and international prestige.
«I came to Argentina in 2024 to study because the UBA is the best university in Latin America, and I want to graduate. There’s no toilet paper in the bathroom, and professors receive a salary that doesn’t even cover half the rent,» Thais Caixeiro, a Brazilian studying Psychology at the UBA, told EFE.
Guido Marotta, a Medicine student at the UBA, noted that the student dropout rate is high: professor resignations due to salary issues limit the availability of classes for students, who are increasingly forced to work to support themselves while studying.
«We have to juggle everything. And, since there are no scholarships to continue studying, there is no way to combine the two things (study and work) and people drop out of their university careers,» he said.
Criticism of the government
With banners, Argentine flags, and chants, the massive march was peaceful but carried an energetic tone of protest against Milei, whose image is declining due to the ongoing economic austerity and corruption allegations implicating his government.
Union leaders and members of opposition parties, including Peronism, the Workers’ Left Front, and the Radical Civic Union, participated in the mobilization, as did Argentine cultural figures.
The ruling ultra-right party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), dismissed the massive protest as a «political opposition march» in a statement that Milei shared on social media, expressing that his Administration «has the unwavering commitment to maintain fiscal balance.» EFE
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