BUENOS AIRES (CN) — Thousands of students at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s most prestigious university, had to find their way to class in the dark, a number of videos that went viral on social media last week showed.
Facing soaring electric bills and steep budget cuts implemented by President Javier Milei, the public university has resorted to saving power by turning off hallway lights, shutting down air conditioners and limiting elevator access.
But Mara Vandeca, a biochemistry student at the university, said navigating dark hallways is the least of her concerns.
“Our professor told us that unfortunately, the quality of our education isn’t the same as the one that she had because there’s not enough money for our lab equipment,” Vandeca said. “The education we’re getting is not the education we’d have with a proper budget.”
On Tuesday, Vandeca was one of hundreds of thousands of Argentines who participated in a historic march in downtown Buenos Aires to defend public education against Milei’s economic “shock therapy.”
People from across the political spectrum flooded the streets in the name of education, making Tuesday’s march the greatest show of resistance against the government since Milei took office four months ago. The University of Buenos Aires estimated around 800,000 people attended.
Officially titled the National March in Defense of Public Education, Science and the National University System, Tuesday’s demonstration was organized by Argentina’s public universities, and backed by the country’s most powerful labor unions, political parties across the ideological spectrum and various private universities. Marches took place around the country, which is home to more than 50 public universities.
Argentina’s public universities are tuition free and open to anyone, regardless of nationality. That includes the University of Buenos Aires, the highest-ranked university in the country, which has educated 17 presidents and four of the country’s five Nobel Prize laureates. Today, over 330,000 students are enrolled at UBA, which offers courses in architecture, engineering, law, psychology, medicine and more.
Milei — the ultra-right libertarian who wielded chainsaws at his campaign rallies to symbolize the budget cuts he intended to make from the presidential Casa Rosada — has described public education as a site for socialist indoctrination. He campaigned on a promise of replacing Argentina’s public education system with a voucher system.
Last week, the president took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize the “cognitive dissonance generated by brainwashing in public education.”
Since assuming the presidency, Milei has slashed Argentina’s public spending, which has helped him achieve the country’s first budget surplus in 16 years and slowed inflation. Those accomplishments have come at a high socioeconomic cost for Argentines, who are struggling to make ends meet as wages fail to keep up with still-rising prices. Since Milei came into power, the poverty rate has spiked to a 20-year high of 57%.
The president’s drastic austerity measures included rolling over UBA’s budget from 2023 to 2024, which, in a country currently operating under 288% annual inflation, amounts to massive defunding. Earlier this month, UBA said its 2024 budget reflected a cut of 80% in real terms and declared a budgetary emergency. The university’s rector, Ricardo Gelpi, said that at this rate, the university could only operate for two or three more months.
In response to public outcry, the Milei administration declared that they would increase the university’s budget for operating expenses by 70%. However, operating expenses only make up around 10% of the university’s expenses, and Gelpi told reporters that UBA has yet to see any of that money.
Students like Lautaro Bruno, a 23-year-old who just started law school at UBA, aren’t sure whether they’ll be able to continue studying next semester.
“My grandma finished elementary school, my mother finished high school, and I want to finish university,” Bruno said, standing with friends on a crowded avenue at Tuesday’s march. “I want to ascend socially and I want to ascend in knowledge, so I can give something back to society.”
Bruno was with 22-year-old Débora Götte, also the first in her family to go to college.
“Not only is UBA the best university in the country, it’s public, and any working-class kid can come here to study,” Götte, who is studying medicine, said. “Any kid has the chance to say, ‘I want to be a doctor,’ and then become a doctor, and our country supports that.”
Buenos Aires has seen a number of marches since Milei became president. Some — such as the march for International Women’s Day and the march for memory, which commemorates the victims of Argentina’s brutal dictatorship — take place annually. Others, like January’s national strike led by labor unions, were a direct response to Milei’s economic measures. Another national strike is set for next month.
Chants such as “Milei, garbage, you’re the dictatorship” and “Whoever doesn’t jump voted for Milei” have become mainstays at downtown Buenos Aires marches. They rung out at Tuesday’s march, too. However, the march was decidedly less partisan than others.
UBA requested ahead of time that banners highlight the need for public education rather than specific political parties. Protesters donned graduation attire and waved books, diplomas and posters with slogans like “education isn’t for sale” at the event, which was supported by parties across the political spectrum, from the Workers’ Left Front to the center-right Radical Civic Union.
“I don’t know a single person who didn’t come, including people who voted for Milei, who are here anyways,” said Delfina López, standing near UBA’s faculty of medicine. López hasn’t attended other marches this year, but she said it was important to show up to defend the school that gave her the opportunity to become a doctor.
“You don’t fuck with the UBA, and you don’t fuck with education,” López said. “They should go adjust other sectors if they need to. Just not this one.”
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