08:14 AM
For several years now in the halls of the University of Antioquia The issue of the lack of financing experienced by the “Alma Mater” is discussed. This is a recurring theme in the assemblies of each faculty and in the general ones, organized by the student movement in the Camilo Torres Restrepo university theater and that has massive attendance.
In fact, the financial crisis that the university is going through, which has led to speculation among various groups for some time now that the directors had to resort to loans to pay the institution’s payroll, It was the reason for long strikes like the one in the second half of 2018. In that protest, for example, the Government of Ivan Duque to increase the cash flow to the country’s public universities, to alleviate the situation.
Although then-President Duque accepted, the measure was insufficient. The financial crisis that the country experienced consequence of the covid-19 pandemic affected public universities. Even the historic allocation of 70 billion pesos made by the Government of Gustavo Petro for the education sector in the General Budget of the Nation for 2024also seems to fall short of alleviating the “historical debt” that institutions like the UdeA have.
According to what a university source told El Colombiano, The financial deficit of the institution is around 350,000 million pesos. That was what led last month, for the first time in 50 years, to the University of Antioquia to be late in paying payroll to its workers.
For this reason, also, on Wednesday, June 12, the governor of Antioquia, Andrés Julián Rendón He appeared in a video with the Secretary of Education of Antioquia and former rector of the university, Mauricio Alviar Ramírezto announce that he was going to throw a “lifesaver” to the educational institution by disbursing 11,000 million pesos, which corresponds to the disbursement that the department would have to give to the UdeA in the months of June and July.
Given this panorama, the question arises What is the origin of the definancing of the University of Antioquia and other public universities in the country?
To answer the question we have to go back to the 90s. In the government of the former liberal president Cesar GaviriaColombia opened itself economically to the world, began to adopt neoliberal behaviors.
Education was not immune to these changes. This is how the Law 30 of 1992, a reform that sought to expand coverage and modernize the financing model of public Higher Education Institutions. In two articles of that standard, the Consumer Price Index (CPI)which varies each year according to the inflation suffered by goods and services, is the basis of the contributions that the educational institution receives from the nation.
This was stipulated in article 86, according to information published by From the city, the newspaper of the Faculty of Communications of the University of Antioquia. In the section it says: “state or official universities will receive contributions annually from the national budgets and territorial entities, which always mean an increase in constant pesos, based on the income and expense budgets in force as of 1993.”
Meanwhile, article 87 says that six years after the promulgation of the law, that is, starting in 1998, the national government was going to increase the contribution to the financing of public universities by a percentage not less than 30% of the increase in the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
But that money is not part of the universities’ budget base. In fact, this money has to be distributed among the 34 universities of the State University System, so the money they distribute is not enough for the institutions to cover their expenses, which generally exceed income.
Furthermore, in the case of the University of Antioquia the gap seems to be getting bigger because, on the one hand, it has financed the full tuition of many students for a long time. (there were many who studied paying 1,000 pesos for tuition per semester)and on the other hand, it has regular professors who, due to their career and research experience, earn salaries exceeding 25 million pesos.
As indicated in a general meeting, 2023 was the year in which the highest increase in operating expenses occurred in the last 14 years. Hence the request of many students and teachers that there be a change in the national education system so that public HEIs can escape the financial crisis that has been stalking them for several years. Perhaps, the reform that is being discussed in the legislature these days can change things, help institutions like the University of Antioquia.
