Supreme Court orders Milei government to fund universities

The Supreme Court has upheld an injunction requiring the government of Argentina's President Javier Milei to comply with the University Financing Law, dealing a significant setback to the administration's efforts to block the measure.

The ruling, handed down on Thursday, rejected an extraordinary appeal lodged by the government against the implementation of the law, according to court documents.

The decision means the government must update university lecturers' salaries retroactively to December 2023 and restore funding linked to student scholarships that had been discontinued.

Congress approved the legislation in August last year. Milei vetoed the bill, arguing that it threatened his fiscal balance targets, but lawmakers later overrode the veto. Despite that, the government never implemented the measure.

The Supreme Court's intervention seeks to bring an end to a dispute that has pitted the administration against Argentina's public universities for more than two years and sparked a series of mass demonstrations demanding greater investment in higher education.

"It was a long and difficult road," University of Buenos Aires (UBA) vice-chancellor Emiliano Yacobitti wrote on social media platform X, celebrating what he described as society's unwavering defence of public universities as "the main engine of social mobility."

The government had argued that compliance with the law depended on Congress identifying a source of funding, a condition it established by decree.

However, a separate legal challenge brought by public universities remains open and will determine whether that decree is constitutional. Until that issue is resolved, the Supreme Court has ordered the government to comply with the financing law.

Earlier this month, the Education Secretariat proposed a 24.33 percent pay rise for university lecturers and additional funds to cover some operating expenses.

Academic unions have argued that lecturers' salaries have lost around 40 percent of their purchasing power over the past two years, leading hundreds of professors to resign from public universities.

The latest of four nationwide marches in defence of university funding took place on May 13, when demonstrators gathered outside Government House carrying the slogan: "Milei, heed the law."

– TIMES/AFP

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