Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on Tuesday to demand that President Javier Milei’s government implement laws guaranteeing funding for public universities. Demonstrations in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Tucumán and other cities culminated in a large march to Plaza de Mayo in the capital, spilling onto surrounding avenues.
Organizers said about 600,000 students, university staff, union members and opposition supporters joined the Buenos Aires rally, with as many as 1.5 million people protesting nationwide. Marchers chanted for the enforcement of two pieces of legislation passed by Congress in 2024 and 2025 that were designed to cover universities’ operating costs and to adjust academic salaries for high inflation.
At the Buenos Aires march, 24-year-old law student Sol Muniz told reporters she believed the government was ‘determined to defund public education.’ Eighteen-year-old literature student Renata Lopez carried a copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and said the book ‘speaks to our reality’ as she and others warned that cuts to higher education were not a distant threat but a present danger.
The standoff dates to when President Milei vetoed the university-funding laws, arguing they conflicted with his fiscal austerity program. Parliament overrode the veto, but the government has so far refused to put the measures into effect. The dispute is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
Milei and some allies have criticized university campuses as centers of ideological influence, echoing rhetoric used by political figures abroad. Critics say that stance has helped justify sharp budget reductions since he took office.
Public university budgets have fallen roughly 40% since 2023, according to Argentine research centers, dropping from just over 0.7% of GDP in 2023 to about 0.4% this year — the lowest level recorded since 1989. Teachers’ union figures show university professors’ real pay has fallen by about a third amid high inflation, and the rector of the University of Buenos Aires reported that at least 580 research professors in engineering and the sciences have left the public system for better-paid posts in the private sector or outside academia.
Argentina has about 60 public universities that have been tuition-free since 1949. Because tuition is not charged, institutions rely heavily on state financing, which accounts for roughly 80–90% of their income. Marcelo Rabossi, a higher-education specialist, has described Argentina’s public universities as symbols of social mobility and national pride, roles protesters say are being threatened by current policy.
Marchers called for immediate compliance with the parliamentary funding laws, stronger protections for academic staff and a commitment to preserve free public higher education. Demonstrators vowed to keep pressing until state funding is restored and the universities’ long-standing role in Argentine society is secured.