“The public universities of the Community of Madrid are on the verge of disappearing and I say this because the situation is so dramatic”, warned the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, in a press conference after the council of ministers According to a 2024 report by the Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo (CYD) that analyzes Spanish universities from an autonomous perspective, Madrid’s public institutions are the ones that “receive the least current and capital transfers from their autonomous community per student” . Morant has confirmed that funding per student in the Madrid community is “21% below the Spanish average”. The situation is borderline, as reported by the same institutions, which in recent weeks have raised their voice and lashed out against Ayuso, who has been plunged into a clash with the rectors of the six Madrid public schools and after days of increasing pressure has ended up loosening and moving the tab.
The trigger was the first draft of the regional budgets for 2025, which only increased its budget by 0.9% (about 5.5 million more) while the overall growth of the project is 4% and the highest responsible of the institutions had estimated at 200 million extra (18% more) what they needed to guarantee their operation. Last week the six rectors issued a joint letter denouncing it and, at a working lunch on Tuesday, the Madrid president informed them that finally the regional contribution for next year will be 47.3 million more. This represents an increase of 4.2% compared to the previous one.
“Fifteen years of underfunding”
As a reaction, protests were called this Thursday at the doors of the Assembly of Madrid coinciding with the debate on the amendments to all the accounts. And although Ayuso’s offer represents an improvement, the investment remains far from the needs expressed by the rectors who warned in the letter that they are in a “critical situation” that “in a few years could become catastrophic” after which accumulate “15 years of underfinancing and a progressive reduction in income”.
“Job insecurity, the impossibility of restoring retirements, limitations on promotions, the suspension of training and research projects and the inability to attract or retain talent are some of the recurring challenges. Added to this are outdated infrastructures that represent a growing risk for users and workers,” they said in the letter. The controversy was amplified even more when this Monday Morant denounced in a letter that Madrid was the only autonomy that was resisting signing up to a program, called María Goyri, which would give Madrid’s public universities the possibility of incorporating more of 1,000 doctoral assistants. By not signing the agreement, Ayuso was preventing the Spanish government from investing “more than 169 million euros” – 60% of the cost of the contracts – over the next six years, he said.
Morant asked him for a rectification which also arrived, at least partially, the next day. Shortly before meeting precisely with the six critical rectors at the lunch to which he had invited them, the executive of the Madrid president announced that he had the “will to initial the agreement”. Now, setting himself apart from the rest of the autonomies, Ayuso is preparing an alternative proposal that has not yet come to fruition and of which Morant is suspicious. From Més Madrid they point out that renouncing this program makes no budgetary sense “unless the plan is to completely destroy” the public universities, since “30% of the teaching staff will retire in the next five years” and it will be necessary to fill the vacancies also with own funds if you want to guarantee the continuity of higher public education.
