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Rector Aldo Valle assured that student benefits should be thought of as "an articulated public policy of effective social mobility." He argued that those who access the Gratuity "are young people from poor families, with academic gaps and who are the first to enter the university in their families."
In addition, he insisted on the proposal of the Council of Rectors to use the resources recovered from the Solidarity Fund to alleviate the deficits generated by Gratuity.
The executive vice president of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), Aldo Valle, called for changes in the current financing model of higher education, in order to articulate and align student benefits (Gratuity, scholarships and credit) and build “an articulated public policy of effective social mobility”.
In the session of the Education Commission of the Lower House, which analyzed the problems derived from the application of Gratuity in the affiliated institutions, Valle explained that during this year more than 12 thousand CRUCH students lost the Gratuity; while the institutions of the Council generated an additional deficit of $15 billion, which could double if those affected by this situation cannot pay their fees.
For this reason, the authority of the Council of Rectors questioned that this public policy has resulted in "a defective system that punishes the poorest students." The executive vice president of CRUCH explained that those who access the Gratuity "are young people from poor families, with academic gaps and that they are the first to enter the university in their families," adding that "in Chile, a 70% of students they take more than an additional year to finish their careers ”.
CRUCH proposals
On the occasion and as an immediate measure, the executive vice president of CRUCH reiterated the proposal to use part of the resources recovered from the University Credit Solidarity Fund (FSCU) to alleviate the deficits generated by Gratuity, a solution that was proposed last year during the discussion of the 2019 Budget Law and subsequently rejected by the Constitutional Court.
To carry out this measure, it is necessary to modify Article 71 bis of Law No. 18,591 on FSCU. Additionally, the rector Valle proposed two modifications to the Higher Education Law: increase the coverage of gratuity in proportion to the duration of the studies (three semesters for careers of 12 or more semesters, two semesters for careers of at least 8 semesters). semesters and one semester for careers of less than 8 semesters), and eliminate the tariff cap to be charged to students outside of Gratuity.
The President of the Consortium of State Universities of Chile (CUECH), rector Ennio Vivaldi; the president of the Network of Non-State Public Universities (G9 Network), rector Jorge Tabilo; and the head of the Division of Higher Education (Divesup) of the Ministry of Education, Juan Eduardo Vargas.
Also present were the rector Juan Manuel Zolezzi, from the University of Santiago de Chile, and the rector Patricio Sanhueza, from the Playa Ancha University. In addition to the problems derived from Gratuity, the meeting analyzed the duration of university careers and student stress.
*Presentación del CRUCH: