In 2019, these Universities They started with 100 locations in the country, now they have 200.and reached an enrollment of 85,000 students according to data that the general director of the Universities of Welfare, Raquel Sosa, gave during an event with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum.
“At this moment we are reaching the figure of 85 thousand students, of which there are three areas that are the priority, those that have more students, but fundamentally the health areas. We have 34,000 students in health careers, mainly in Integral Medicine and Community Health, and 9,000 in Historical and Cultural Heritage of Mexico,” said Sosa, on June 27 in Tlaltizapán de Zapata, Morelos.
To enter these universities, it is not necessary to take an entrance exam as is the case with other higher education institutions such as UNAM or IPN. Instead, interested parties must register on the program’s official platform and upload their documentation, where they are assigned a registration number.
These schools were founded in the Autonomous University of Mexico City (AUCM), which was also created in April 2001 by López Obrador when he was head of government of the then Federal District.
“Who are our students?” Sosa asked at the event and said: “70% of our students are children of families who live with their parents, mothers or their families, mainly. They are not very fond of independence and perhaps they do not have many resources, but they have everything, their scholarship of 2,400 pesos per month and 73% of our students live off their scholarship, that is the only income they have,” he said.
The graduates
In the request for information, the SEP mentioned that the 1,335 ID cards it issued are for students of 23 of the 36 degrees offered by the Welfare Universities; That is, in 13 there is no student with this document. This is the case for the degrees in Integral Medicine and Community Health, Nursing and Obstetrics, in Mines and Industrial Maintenance or Electromechanics.
The courses with the fewest issuance of certificates are the bachelor’s degrees in Computer Engineering with 2 of these documents; Municipal Administration and Public Policies, with 6 certificates; in Industrial and Electromechanical Engineering, with 7, and in Artistic Expression and Production, with 11.
Otherwise, the degree program with the most people with this accreditation is the Bachelor’s degree in Teacher Training in Historical Heritage and Culture Education in Mexico with 374 students with a professional license; those in the Bachelor’s degree in Agro-Food Process Engineering, with 174; in Law, with 130 and those in Engineering in Regional and Sustainable Development, with 97 students.
In this same request for information, the SEP was asked to report how many people have graduated, the Secretary of State only responded that the UBBJG, “has charged” 1,892 titles to the Electronic Titles Platform. Without specifying whether that means the total number of students who have graduated.
According to information from the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), the well-known “AMLO universities” have two teachers for every 100 students, when UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute IPN have 10 teachers for every 100 students.
A review of the teachers and students registered at the UBBJG revealed that as of July 31 of this year, there are 58,503 students and 1,675 teachers in its more than 200 campuses, meaning that on average each teacher is in charge of 35 students, but this is still below the statistics of UNAM and IPN.
The budget grows
The university budget year after year they have increased by up to 40%. Since their creation until this year, these schools received 7,046.5 million pesossince they have positioned themselves within the Top 10 Government Programs.
This program is considered by the federal government as a priority. Only in the General Criteria of Economic Policy for 2024, it was determined that there were 22 programs and infrastructure works considered as priorities, among them are the Benito Juárez García Universities for Well-Being.
