Education: The Heart of the Issue

From personal experience it seems that education in Chile is in a fragile state. Before leaving to study abroad you are warned that there is always a chance for strikes.
As the semester starts up, one of the strangest things you will notice walking down the street, apart from the freshman covered in fish, paint, and condiments (picture on the right) begging for change to get their shoes back from the upperclassmen, are the droves of university employees accosting you with pamphlets. These pamphlets offer deals on admission and the various courses they offer. It almost feels like walking down a street populated by bars and bar promoters trying to get you to come in for a drink special . . . Except in this case, you are not just going to get a buzz on, it's for your education and future.


Another aspect of the education system that drew my attention and is distinct from the United States is that you pay depending on what major you select. For example, to study engineering or biology, the tuition per semester is much higher than to study a noble but largely useless subject, like Political Science.


How did it end up like this?

The public universities are for-profit institutions. Wait, what? Yes, the universities are designed to bring in the $$. During the Pinochet dictatorship, he introduced many neoliberal policies to all industries, including to education with the idea that competition between universities would improve the quality of education and as a result public universities were converted into for-profit institutions. In addition, Pinochet transferred funds that were previously used to subsidize the public universities into a voucher system that parents could use to enroll their children in private schools and universities. As a result private universities sprung up that could cash in on the voucher system and continued to appear in the early 1990's and 2000's after the Dictatorship ended.

Part of the problem with so many small private universities is the lack of uniformity in the curriculum and inability to control the quality of the education. As I said, it feels like a bit of a crap shoot walking down the street and being handed a pamphlet from 10 different universities advertising what they have to offer and recruiting you to enroll . . . If I remember correctly when I applied to college I had to fill out a dozen applications, interview, and in the end beg a college to take me.

These policies seem to have had mixed results. Middle classes moved their students out of public schools as the quality deteriorated and poorer students who have stayed in the public schools tend not to test as well and are forced into attending private universities that can be more expensive and have a dubious quality of education. More students than ever are attending college, 7 out of 10 are the first in their family, but with funds redirected to the voucher system and similar initiatives, the available resources to help students attend the public universities have dwindled. Students are leaving with massive debts up to $45-50,000, which in a country that has the highest average wages relative to the rest of Latin America, is still an astronomical sum. (The price of education leads to some awkward moments in Chile when a Chilean student would ask how much you pay, a.k.a. that amount per semester but it is so much and sounds so ridiculous that the only way to respond was "a lot" and mention The Simpsons or that you have been to New York as a quick way out of the subject.)

Facts that don're reflect to well on the system:

- Minimal funding is put into higher education- about 2.2% of GDP and just over 0.5% of GDP go toward public universities.

- In 1986, 63% if students were enrolled in public schools. In 2008 about 43%

- 80% of students are in private universities. Loans for private universities have higher interest rates and students are leaving with higher debts.

- Students are using as much as 18% of their salaries over 15 years to pay off debts.- According to a study by the World Bank

That is my best attempt to explain what is going on and what has joined students and teachers, young and old and has dropped the President's approval rating to 26% as they attempt to reform the education system through a massive movement that has been felt by everyone in Chile, but has not been so much as a blip on the radar in these parts.