Tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets on Tuesday, including in Buenos Aires, to protest what they described as erosion of funding for public universities under President Javier Milei. Organizers and demonstrators said the cuts threaten a university system they portray as central to Argentina’s workforce and middle-class education—an issue they put at the center of wider dissatisfaction as the government faces economic strains and slipping approval.
Protests gathered people across different age groups and political persuasions, with marchers in the capital moving toward government headquarters to denounce budget shortfalls. In demonstrations nationwide, protesters said the government has not carried out a law approved by Congress last year that was meant to provide additional resources for universities’ operating costs and to raise teacher salaries in line with inflation.
Milei’s administration has argued the funding law fails to spell out how the state would deliver mandatory increases during a period of stringent fiscal austerity. The case, officials said, is expected to go to the Supreme Court, and student protesters urged the high court to “listen to the outcry throughout the country’s public squares.”
The dispute has also become entangled with Milei’s public messaging about universities, where he has criticized campuses as sites of “woke” indoctrination. Alongside that rhetoric, protesters said his government’s approach has involved sharp cuts to public education funding, which they cast as a break from what they described as decades of spending patterns by previous, more left-leaning administrations.
In an effort to respond directly to the march, Alejandro Álvarez, Milei’s undersecretary for university policies, criticized the protests as “completely political.” Álvarez said the government had compensated universities for higher operating costs, a claim that unions and critics have said falls short of what is required under the law and inflation conditions.
The protests also reflect financial pressure on university workers. The main teachers’ federation said that since Milei took office in late 2023, university professors’ paychecks have declined by roughly 33% after accounting for stubborn inflation, and demonstrators linked those losses to broader impacts on research and campus staffing.
Ricardo Gelpi, rector of the University of Buenos Aires, said the purchasing-power decline has driven at least 580 research professors in engineering and science to leave the public system for private universities or other better-paying jobs. At the march, law student Sol Muñíz, 24, said the government’s actions have made the future of the system feel uncertain, adding, “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.”
Some demonstrators also focused on corruption allegations involving people close to Milei. They referenced an investigation into lavish spending by Cabinet chief Manuel Adorni, and one sign asked, “How much does Adorni cost us?”—an accusation protesters used to argue that public funds are being diverted even as university budgets face cuts.
As the legal process moves toward the Supreme Court, organizers said the protests would continue to pressure the government on funding implementation and on what they frame as the political decision to reduce support for public higher education.