The Madrid college concludes its struggle in opposition to Ayuso with an enormous demonstration | Education | EUROtoday

Thousands of scholars and lecturers have toured the middle of Madrid, from Atocha to Sol, as a fruits of the sudden nice success of the 2 days of strike known as on the Madrid public University. Until December 19, there’s time for the Community, which is financially suffocating its campuses, to enhance the rise within the funds (deliberate for an inadequate 75.3 million), to ship the 34.5 million to the Complutense as a non-refundable fund, or not less than enable the biggest college in Spain to not return 4.4 million in curiosity. Something that requires sustaining “war budgets,” within the phrases of its rector, for the subsequent three years. Madrid is the neighborhood that gives the least funding per college scholar in all of Spain.

A banner made by the Complutense Fine Arts college students opens the demonstration. It was impressed by The Executions of Francisco de Goya and was accomplished in a lockdown at its school, one of the vital affected by the financial disaster. It is an experimental course and the scholars themselves are buying the supplies.

“Studying is a right, not a luxury.” “Not to no more university.” “Educate, free. Taxes on the rich.” “Investing in education is investing in equality.” “Help, listen, the unis are in struggle.” “We don’t have Pa Ciencia.” “They privatize to deceive.” These are some of the messages that can be read on the posters. Many chants go against the rise of the higher education business – “Nothing, nothing, for the private one”, or “public and quality university” – which contrasts with the decline of the public one: “There is no right: we are falling the roof.” And also shouts against President Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP): “Ayuso, clown, you pay the fees”; “Ayuso guilty, you are responsible.” The aforementioned, for her part, has hung a logo with a heart on X as a symbol of pride in having studied at the public University.

The protesters have been divided by unions. The biology students wore lab coats; those from Geology, the reflective vests from their field trips; and the convening unions were placed at the end so as not to take away the students’ prominence. These, very detached from university life since the pandemic, have decided to take to the streets not only due to the lack of means, but also of opportunities to enter the desired career.

The final data on the follow-up of the strike will take time to be known, but the provisional data give an idea of ​​success on four of the six campuses. The Complutense, the largest university in Spain, speaks of 96% participation; the Rey Juan Carlos of only 35% of classes taught; the Autonomous without activity in literature and in the Carlos III, very little in social sciences and humanities.

On this second day, the picket visited the engineering schools, which were more reluctant to strike. And, after protesting in front of the rectorate, hundreds of university students – 500 according to the Efe agency, 1,000 according to the organizers – have crossed the center of Madrid to the Reina Sofía museum, cutting off traffic in their path.

In parallel, this Thursday, after visiting a school, counselor Emilio Viciana insisted on the “historic” enhance within the funds, though 310 million are lacking to succeed in the 2009 degree, discounting inflation. “We have fluid contact with the rectors. Everything is progressing at tempo, however for the events on the left it is a chance to attempt to muddy the bottom…”. In reality, Viciana has ignored the rectors for two years, with whom she maintains a tense relationship. In June, Ayuso forced him to sit down and negotiate the higher education law with them and now they meet periodically. This same afternoon, the rectors met with Viciana to talk about the higher education law being prepared by the Ministry, although not about financing.

Precisely, the rectors are the great absentees of these protest days. They have not spoken out despite expressing in two events – in April 2024 and May 2025 – their deep discomfort with the lack of financing. And a photo has fueled the indignation of the organizers. It shows senior officials from the Complutense (Joaquín Goyache) and Polytechnic of Madrid (Óscar García) signing an agreement to “promote cultural and academic activities” with the Pozuelo City Council (PP) and with four of the 13 private universities in Madrid. The dissemination of the image coincided with the first day of protests. Precisely, one of the reasons for the strike is to denounce the progress of the private university, while the public university does not have the means to offer the places that families and the market demand.

The Community coincided this present day with the announcement of the fee of twenty-two million euros to the schools to compensate for the drop in enrollment agreed upon by the autonomies and the central authorities in 2020. It is a authorized obligation, however the Madrid Executive has managed to get the media to speak about “direct help.”

Councilor Viciana has additionally repeated these weeks that the left makes use of “a very old trick” by combining funding and variety of college students, as a result of Madrid has “14% of the population of all of Spain, but more than 20% of university students.” In actuality, internet hosting college students from overseas is large enterprise. The proof is that Ayuso introduced in 2023 the 85% drop in tuition charges for Latin Americans – to the extent of neighborhood college students – so {that a} “call effect” would happen. He has not but fulfilled his dedication.

The controversy has additionally moved to the Madrid City Council, the place within the plenary session this Thursday, Más Madrid councilor Eduardo Rubiño made a comparability that many are elevating as of late. “There is money for Formula 1, for the golf master’s degree, for American football, 6,000 million in tax cuts, but evidently there is no money for the public university.”