The Governing Council of the Community of Madrid has approved this Wednesday the decree approving public university prices. A text that supposes, has said the Minister of Education, “the greatest reduction of these public prices”. A reduction that the Ayuso Executive now presumes, but which was opposed in the negotiation between the Ministry of Universities and the rest of the autonomous communities for the harmonization of rates throughout the territory.
The agreement, from which Madrid, Andalusia, Castilla y León, Murcia and Euskadi had dropped, but which they have to abide by, set the maximum price of the credit at 18.46 euros, 21% less than the average 23.37 euros it costs in Madrid, the region with the highest public university prices, followed by Catalonia (23.05 euros) and Navarra (19.62 euros). On the opposite side are Galicia, which with 11.93 euros is the one with the lowest average rates, Asturias (12.34 euros) and the Canary Islands (12.45 euros).
As explained by the counselor and vice president of the regional government, the adaptation to that agreement that Madrid did not share will mean a 20% reduction in the price of degrees and 30% in that of master’s degrees in public universities in the region. “The average reduction in a degree is between 1,072 and 1,310 euros for the four courses” and “in the case of master’s degrees, it reaches up to 4,888 euros of reduction in the entire master’s degree”, Ossorio has developed, which has indicated that ” this represents an investment of 46.7 million euros that saves 192,000 students, by the Community it compensates the Universities”, he pointed out in the press conference after the Governing Council.
We approve in #Government council:
– Reduction of university fees: 20% undergraduate, 30% in master’s.
– Superior Vocational Training Scholarships with 50% more beneficiaries.
– 46 million in job search aid for the long-term unemployed. pic.twitter.com/gLeTdyWtGU
— Isabel Diaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) June 29, 2022
“We said at the time that it was probably better to create a system of scholarships to attend to the families that really needed it and not the whole group, but the opposite was agreed by the State and the rest of the autonomous communities and we do it and, In addition, we put 46 million euros so that the universities do not lose income”, Ossorio acknowledged. “In that university policy conference, the State administration did not put a euro and we put 46 million. They invited and did not pay. That is what the freeloader does”, the Minister of Education disfigured.
University financing corresponds to the autonomous communities. In this case, to Madrid, which in the last five academic years has maintained the average price of the credit between 23 and 24 euros and is, since the 2020/21 academic year, the one with the highest rates. Until that year, where it was more difficult to study at a public university was in Catalonia, which has been adapting to the requirements of the new agreement reached between the communities and the ministry.
Ossorio has also announced that those students with extraordinary awards, who have been victims of gender violence, participants in peace and security operations, who receive the minimum vital income or the minimum insertion income, will be exempt from paying tuition. In addition, the terms in which the fees can be paid are extended from three to five. The objective, said the director of the branch, is “that no one for economic reasons stays out of the University”.
In addition, the Governing Council has approved three million euros for university scholarships that, they calculate, will benefit some 3,000 students “from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.” These endowments will be 1,240 euros for undergraduate students and 2,100 for master’s degrees and will have “priority those students whose economic situation has worsened during the year 2021 as a result of the pandemic and those students who do not receive scholarships from the Ministry”. These “important scholarships” from the central government, as Ossorio has described them, amount to 2,134 million euros this year for the entire territory.
These three million that the Community of Madrid will allocate to university scholarships will be distributed through agreements with the public universities of the region. Specifically, the Complutense will distribute 905,000 euros; the Rey Juan Carlos University, 607,000 euros; the Polytechnic, 474,000; the Autonomous, 372,000 euros; the Carlos III of Madrid, 281,000; and that of Alcalá, 268,000 euros.
Also in the university field, the vice president has announced the call for competitions for 1,226 professional positions. Of these, 871 will be for teaching and research staff and 355 for administration and services staff. By universities, 512 places will be for the Complutense University; 269 for the Polytechnic; 260 for the Autonomous; 83 for the University of Alcalá; 55 for Carlos III; and 47 for King Juan Carlos.
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