The Council of Rectors (Cruch) has raised strong objections to the higher education budget contained in the 2027 Budget Bill proposal presented by the Executive Branch. Broadly speaking, the criticisms point out that resources for this sector decrease by 1% compared to 2026, highlighting how critical the reductions are in Direct Fiscal Contribution (AFD), the Plan to Strengthen State Universities, the Baseline Performance Fund for G9 universities, as well as the drop in the Institutional Contribution to State Universities. Added to this are the reductions in contributions to gratuity (free tuition), all of which—in the Cruch's view—erode the foundations on which a higher education system that is a leader in Latin America has been built. They warn that these cuts condition the universities' capacity to sustain research programs—which are fundamental to key areas of the country, such as health or technological development—besides undermining leveling programs for new students, which runs counter to inclusion policies.
It is inevitable that in a scenario of severe fiscal constraint, public spending must be sharply adjusted, a reality that various sectors have found difficult to grasp, as reflected in the strident criticisms that have come from all kinds of agencies questioning the reduction of their budgets. In the case of education, there is a debate that is very much one of principle, because beyond the fact that resources for this sector also reflect the need for adjustment, it is interesting that the Ministry of Education has made it a policy to prioritize spending on early childhood education, because that is where the difference can be made in the educational trajectories of boys and girls. Thus, the authority has sent the signal that with this budget the aim is to reverse the trend observed over the past decade, in which the largest budget increases have gone to higher education, particularly gratuity, which for 2027 contemplates resources of around US$2.5 billion.
The debate over where to prioritize resources in education was indispensable, and the Budget Bill will be the opportunity to begin this discussion. The emphases the budget establishes to strengthen nursery schools and kindergartens are a first step, an area where, despite increases in resources, the country remains below OECD standards. The disproportion between what is invested in university students versus what is allocated to boys and girls must begin to be reversed, because this is not consistent with the abundant available evidence on the multiplier effect of investing more in early childhood. In this regard, the studies conducted by Nobel laureate in Economics James Heckman are very illustrative in showing that high-quality early childhood education programs generate substantive and lasting benefits—for children as well as for their mothers—with these measurements showing that at age 30 there are significant improvements in income, but also in other highly relevant social dimensions, such as lower drug use.
The worrying data from international measurements on the learning of Chilean students should also be enough to persuade that it is inevitable to invest much more in early education. The results of the latest PISA test—which measures the performance of 15-year-old students—show significant declines at the OECD level, but in Chile's case the data are even more unsatisfactory: in Mathematics—where our country obtained its worst result since it has participated in this measurement—only 41% of students achieved at least the basic level, compared to 65% in the OECD, while in Reading the basic level was reached by 62%, versus the OECD average of 69%. As the labor market becomes increasingly demanding, particularly with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, it is imperative to strongly improve mathematical skills and reading comprehension, something that obviously will not be corrected in higher education if the foundation is already very weakened from the school stage.
Certainly, the quality of its universities cannot be a matter of indifference to the country, but it seems evident that continuing with the logic that the most important thing is to guarantee higher education will be of little use if at the lower levels—where the education game is truly played—the gaps are insurmountable. The fact that the unemployment rate among segments with higher education far exceeds two digits should be an indicator that this is no longer a guarantee of employability or higher incomes, a reality that, all the more reason, should force us to rethink our priorities in education.
The 2027 budget proposal should be the occasion to also open debates that have long been postponed in higher education. The direct contributions to Cruch institutions, which for the most part are allocated on the basis of historical criteria, must be reviewed and begin to move toward schemes in which these funds are contestable, because this will foster healthy competition and should ultimately be an incentive to improve quality standards. It is possible that the abrupt cut in these funds could generate major imbalances in the short term, and therefore it would be reasonable to seek formulas that allow for a gradual transition path, something that could well begin to be discussed in this Budget Bill. It will also be necessary to ask whether it is pertinent to continue allocating such large sums to gratuity, a program that has ended up costing the country twice what was originally estimated.
It would be regrettable if in the legislative debate these very fundamental discussions end up once again being displaced by particular interests or guild pressures, because in the end this would represent a very concrete harm to our educational system.