The National University Council (CNU) by Constitutional mandate is supposed to provide 6% of total national budget to higher education. In 2018 the UCA´s share was 251.8 million córdobas. This year the CNU cut the assignment to the UCA to only 1 million córdobas. This article looks at the impact through the eyes of two students.
Scholarship students of the UCA: “I am afraid of not graduating”
By Divergentes, January 20, 2022
The regime of Daniel Ortega is trying to quash one of the most important centers for the formation of critical thinking in Nicaragua: the drastic budget cut to the Jesuit Central American University affects dozens of students who aspire to getting a university degree, now that their possibilities of providing complete and partial scholarships have been reduced. “I feel like having a degree is like saying to the regime that we continue resisting. Studying is resisting,” they say.
Each time Estela* reads a news story where the budget reduction is mentioned that the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo ordered against the Central American University (UCA), she is afraid of being left without one of her scholarships. Since she began her major, she has received a full scholarship, which includes academic costs, housing and food. Her fears grow on knowing that she is not from the capital. Estela is from Jinotega, a province located in northern Nicaragua and more than 140 kilometers from Managua. The distance between both cities is enough to understand why she is so afraid of being left without her scholarship. The fact that they take it from her means that she would not be able to continue her studies.
DIVERGENTES contacted the UCA to learn about their response to the drastic reduction of the budget for this year, and in a brief communication the leadership of the Central American University stated that these measures “affect the possibilities of the University to continue granting complete and partial scholarships to students who because of their social and economic situation see themselves prevented from dealing with the costs of their university training.” The authorities of the campus added that “so far the University has not affected active scholarships, nevertheless, it has significantly limited the number of new scholarships granted for those who aspire to enter the university.”
This reduction results in the fact that the student feels that her situation is not doing well in the university. There is a lot of dread and fear since the regime decided to deprive the UCA of nearly the entire budget that, by law, it should be granted. This year was the mortal blow: the National University Council (CNU) – coordination and advisory body for higher education dominated by the Sandinista Front – will only provide the university a million córdobas ($28,000 at the official exchange rate), as reported by CONFIDENCIAL. Another university affected is the Catholic University of the Dry Tropics (UCATSE), which also will only receive a million córdobas this year.
The reductions are alarming for students like Estela. There is no need to know the finances of the campus to realize that. They are visible. “Due to this money situation, the scholarship most affected that I have is the internal one. I understand that the University has three dorms, but since 2018, because of the context and reductions, the university saw itself forced to close two of them and move the remaining students to the dorm where I live. The dorm is like an apartment with many rooms,” explains the student who out of fear of the repressive situation of the country asked to keep her identity secret.
The ”punishment” which will affect students
Estela is not the only person who is afraid of the economic strangulation that the regime is exercising against one of the most critical universities during the protests of April, which represented a political earthquake for the dictatorship. Jimena*, another 21 year old student, is afraid of not graduating. She is one of the few from her generation who has a complete scholarship due to her academic performance. “It is a very brutal measure. It feels like (the regime) is saying: if we want to close (the university) we will close it, if we want to screw you, we are going to continue screwing you. It is a clear message,” she reflects. She also asked for anonymity out of fear of reprisals.
Estela and Jimena entered the University in 2018, a convulsive period for the country. Their lives were interrupted by the social protests of April, where thousands of students – many of them from the UCA – rose up against the regime. The UCA is considered a rebellious university, a school where dissidence seems to be a natural characteristic of the students. The hypotheses for this phenomenon can be many for the person who wants to study it, but there is no doubt that the absence of the National Union of Students of Nicaragua (UNEN, party arm of the dictatorship within university campuses) has resulted in the fact that a rebellious vein prevails in the corridors of the campus, without the fear of saying what they think no matter how irreverent it may appear. In theory, the UNEN should be watching out for university rights, but in the public campuses where it does have a presence just the opposite happens: academic freedom does not exist, autonomy is dead. Through threats, and many times the use of force, the UNEN pulls all the strings. And everything that moves is for the benefit of the party.
This could explain why the regime has punished in such a harsh way the university administered by the Society of Jesus. “The family that is the owner of the building in which some of us scholarship students live tell us every year that they do not know whether they will continue with the contract that they have with the university, because each year the scholarship department gives them a little bit less money, so we do not know whether the next semester we will have a place to stay,” stated Estela.
Yearly amount assigned to the Central American University
Budget assignments for 2020 and 2021 were not published
1 Source: Budget assignment from National University Council
The reduction would put at risk the academic life of students like her, most of whose costs are covered by the scholarship, which in turn is covered by the constitutional support that the State has the obligation to provide.
“Another impact is food. The owners tell us that due to the limited amount of money that the university provides them for food, they cannot buy a greater variety of ingredients for our meals, so it is that we see the same foods repeated. It is something that is easily noted with the passage of time, at least for those of us who live here. We are always saying to one another, `it was better before´, but there is nothing that we can do,” added the university student.
Since 2018 the Jesuits have denounced that the university has been “the object of multiple exclusions, reprisals and harassment from government bodies and state organs, as well as from other agents or individuals,” as they revealed in one of the letters where they exposed the situation.
“I am a step away from graduating”
The scholarships of Jimena and Estela are like a precious achievement that they do not have the luxury of losing. The university has reduced the size of this benefit and has opted for a more private approach – even though it already was private, the subsidy made the scholarship relatively easy to access for students who met all the requirements. Many were able to study in this way. On Twitter dozens of graduates have shared their experience and do not hesitate to say that thanks to such a scholarship they were able to study in one of the most renowned universities in Nicaragua.
Jimena also is feeling the impacts that are translated into higher costs for certain services, like the ID card and registration. These are the only requirements that the students have to pay, even if they have a scholarship. The cost of the ID card is around $7, as Jimena explains, a cost that has increased in recent years.
“I am afraid because I am one step away ∫from graduating. I feel that having a diploma in the midst of this, is also saying to the regime that we continue resisting in Nicaragua. I was able to do it. I did it. Right now, studying is resisting,” adds Jimena.
* at the request of the students interviewed their names were changed.