Argentine students protest university budget cuts
Hundreds of thousands of students and critics of Argentine President Javier Milei's ultra-liberal administration marched through the country's major cities, protesting against severe cuts to public university funding.
The protest came in response to the Milei administration's threat to veto a law passed by Congress several weeks ago to secure university funding amidst an economic crisis with an annual inflation rate of 236.7%.
In April, a similar mass demonstration forced Milei to retract the university budget cuts. However, authorities from the country's highly regarded, mostly free-of-charge, universities claim that the government failed to follow through on the promised improvements.
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA), one of the top 100 universities worldwide according to the QS ranking, has been adversely affected by the cuts. The UBA offers 110 undergraduate courses, operates six secondary schools and five public hospitals. The cuts have impeded these institutions' functioning since Milei assumed office in December.
Milei's fiscal balance-based economic plan has drawn criticism from opponents who argue that the adjustments have been neither cautious nor fair, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable and sectors such as health and education.
The government has repeatedly claimed this year that public universities are hubs of "socialist" indoctrination, justifying budget reductions.
According to the UBA, which boasts five Nobel Prize alumni, university staff and non-teaching personnel have seen their purchasing power fall by about 40% since December.
In April, a protest that drew hundreds of thousands of students and teachers forced Milei to reconsider a cut in the universities' budget, but university authorities later said the government did not make promised improvements.
