However, a national student movement did not emerge. In all cases, the mobilizations were local and focused. There were very few links between the student bodies of different institutions. The demands of the mobilizations were concrete, focused on the situation of an institution (CIDE), a state (Sinaloa) or a particular policy (judicial reform). There was no articulation of different movements that converged into broader demands and powerful and prolonged collective action mechanisms. There was, in short, a student movement that demanded a profound change in national public life or that demanded actions to guarantee social justice for all Mexicans.
The last time a national student movement emerged was in 2012, with the call #YoSoy132. Its duration, however, was short; Its power is moderate, and its summoning power is medium. Furthermore, with honorable exceptions worthy of recognition, several of the movement’s leaders ended up co-opted by the system they sought to change or remained anonymous.
Shortly after, between 2014 and 2018, the strong protests caused by the Ayotzinapa case attracted a large number of university students, but it cannot be said that this was a student movement. It was, rather, a movement with participation student.
All of this is relevant because, last week, the Ministry of Finance delivered next year’s budget project to Congress, which included a strong cut to public universities. The UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute published statements of surprise, to which the government responded by arguing that it was a “regrettable mistake” and that it would correct this cut, giving an increase in line with inflation to the budget of both institutions.
It is not yet entirely clear whether the “error” will be corrected in all cases and whether other universities, such as the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the dozens of state autonomous universities, will also receive a budget increase in line with inflation. With concern (and rightly so), the professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Jairo Antonio López, published in his X count: “I wish that the ‘error’ had been the budget that regional public universities have had for decades. Many of us operate at a deficit, and from a couple of months before the end of the year, we do not have resources even for payroll.”
The problem of financing state universities goes back a long way and so does the actions of local governments to manage them as political fiefdoms. What is striking, however, is that the government headed by a former student activist and former UNAM professor-researcher is the one who has decided to reduce the budget of public universities.
If we add the budget reduction of public universities with proven quality and reputation to the decision to increase the funds of the Welfare Universities—a failed project until now—we can realize the priorities of this government’s policy on higher education. , which are very much in line with the previous administration: (1) expand access at the expense of quality; (2) exercise political and budgetary controls on critical universities (see the case of CIDE and the University of Guadalajara); and (3) lower the priority level (to the minimum) to the promotion of scientific research and culture.
Sheinbaum got tired of showing off her credentials as a UNAM university activist and scientist on the campaign trail. Several sectors of the academic community—with the political naivety that characterizes them—believed that the new president would activate the vocation of the Mexican State to promote science, culture, the arts, research and quality university education. They were clearly wrong.
