BUENOS AIRES, May 2, 2025 (AP) — An estimated 500,000 students, faculty, and supporters marched through Buenos Aires on Thursday demanding restored funding for public universities, the largest education protest in Argentina since the 2001 economic crisis and a potent display of opposition to President Javier Milei's austerity program just five months before congressional midterm elections.
The demonstration, which stretched for 20 blocks along Avenida 9 de Julio from the Obelisk to Avenida Belgrano, brought together Peronist youth organizations, socialist student federations, centrist academics, and Catholic school administrators in an unusual alliance united by anger over Milei's education budget cuts and his characterization of public universities as "indoctrination factories."
Students and faculty said the government is not just cutting budgets — it's cutting futures. Families who worked for decades to give their children access to free public education now face a system being systematically defunded while the government spends on presidential travel and vanity projects.
The march followed Milei's March 15 veto of a congressional bill that would have guaranteed university funding at 2023 levels adjusted for inflation. The administration had already reduced the education ministry's budget by 30% in real terms since taking office, forcing universities to delay maintenance, freeze 340 faculty hiring positions nationwide, and suspend research grants affecting 1,200 projects in medicine, agriculture, and engineering.
The impact has been acute at UBA, Argentina's largest university with 320,000 students. The university delayed the opening of a new biochemistry laboratory that had been under construction for three years, froze 140 faculty hiring positions, and reduced scholarships for low-income students by 25%, affecting 4,800 recipients.
At the National University of Córdoba, administrators suspended cafeteria subsidies affecting 15,000 students who depend on subsidized meals. The National Technological University postponed infrastructure projects across six campuses, delaying the opening of new engineering facilities.
Milei has defended the cuts as necessary to maintain fiscal discipline and has accused public universities of serving as "indoctrination factories" for left-wing ideologies. His administration has also floated a school voucher proposal that would allow parents to apply public subsidies to private or religious schools, though the plan has not been formally introduced in Congress and lacks the votes to pass.
"Education in Argentina has been captured by unions and political operatives," Milei said at a rally last week in Córdoba. "We need competition, not monopolies. We need parents to choose, not bureaucrats to impose. The current system produces graduates who can't find jobs. We will change that."
The opposition Union for the Homeland bloc has seized on the issue, with former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner addressing the march via video link from her Patagonian residence in El Calafate. "These young people are defending the most precious legacy of Argentine democracy: free, quality public education," she said. "Milei wants to destroy it. We will not let him."
The protests pose a political challenge for Milei. His approval rating among voters aged 18-29 has fallen to 41%, down from 55% in January, according to a Poliarquía poll published this week. Students and young workers are a key voting bloc in October's midterm elections, and their mobilization could energize the fragmented opposition and drive turnout among demographics that historically favor Peronism.
