Colombia's Higher Ed Utopia or Illusion? Insights with Javier Botero

Sam Pufek: You're listening to the World of Higher Education Podcast, Season 3, Episode 18.
Alex Usher: Hi, everyone. I'm Alex Usher, and this is the World of Higher Education podcast.
Latin America sometimes flies below the radar in discussions of global higher education. It's too poor to have major players in the world class universities game, but it's too rich to be among the attention getting new high fliers like Vietnam. And even within Latin America, not every country gets the same attention. Colombia also kind of flows below the radar, lacking the size of Mexico or Brazil, not punching above its weight like Chile and not being stark raving Tonto like Venezuela. But Colombia actually is pretty special. Because of the size and shape of its system, it's actually in the middle of a range of debates that are going on across the world at the same time, making it a kind of miniature of the globe as a whole. A move to gratuidad like in Chile? Colombia is doing that. Constant pressures on quality assurance, given it's 207 public and private institutions? Check. Creating new popular universities on the Mexican model? Yep, that's happening too. Working out how to improve student loan repayment? Well, ISATEX, the country's national student loan agency, actually the oldest such agency in the entire world, is working on that too. In short, this is a country who's thinking on higher education deserves a lot more attention than it usually gets.
The current government of Colombia led by left wing president Gustavo Petro came to office with big ideas about higher education. But without a majority in Congress, things are not going his way and it's not clear that he can pay for the higher education utopia that he promised young voters three years ago in his election campaign.
With me today is Javier Botero, a lead consultant at the World Bank and formerly the Vice Minister of Higher Education in Colombia. He's here to walk us through the latest developments in that country around free tuition, student assistance, and an intriguing case of institutional closure at the University of Antioquia.
This was a fun, fast interview, and I enjoyed it a lot. I hope you do too. So without further ado, let's hand things over to Javier.
Javier, the last time you were on, we discussed President Petro's ambitious plans for the higher education sector. One of his goals was to increase enrollment by half a million students. Two years later, have we seen much progress on that promise?
Javier Botero: Well, really, not as much as one would have expected, of course, at the very beginning, and I I'm sure that I said that in that interview, I thought it was really far too much. You know, that it was, you know, something on the on the clouds, but, but I think it's it has gotten something like about 20, 25 percent of that. And mostly, you know, on the technical education in in SENA, you know, this this huge public institution that offers free technical education. Very little, actually, the, the students in the private educations have, actually decreased. And some state universities have increased, but much less than I think the government expected.
Alex Usher: So it's as much of a shift of enrollments as it is an addition to enrollments.
Javier Botero: That's right. I mean, it is addition in some way, you know, in some sense, because it is true that some students that for, for whom it was, it was going to be difficult to, to actually access higher education through this, uh, you know, technical, especially education or even state universities, they have been able to do that. So there has been an increase, you know, in the low, uh, you know, economic, sector of the, of the society.
Alex Usher: Okay, that's good. So, um, late last year, I think, or maybe it was the year before that, the president signed a law guaranteeing free tuition at Colombian public universities. Now, we have to be careful about that word because, you know, like, for instance, in Chile, you have the word gratuidad, but it only applies to a certain group of students, right? They, certain conditions, uh, including, you know, there's an income cutoff. So what does the Colombian promise about free tuition consist of? Does it really mean free tuition for everyone?
Javier Botero: Yeah, of course not. But you know, the first thing I wanted to say is that this is not actually a policy of this government. You know, it started actually with the previous government, and what Petro, Petro did was, clarify some points, and let's say widen then scope of the policy. But it's still and I'm glad about that, you know, it's not for everyone, you know, you have to you, you know, being certain group related to, to, to income, you know, we call it estrato, you know, it's for the three lowest estratos. And, uh, some other groups that, uh, you know, have been, uh, I mean, very, very, uh, uh, in trouble for many years, like, you know, the indigenous, uh, some Afro descendants and, and, and, and all of that. So it, it is, I mean, it, it does have, you know, some restrictions. But I mean, it's something that Colombia has been working on for now, I think, six years.
Alex Usher: Right. So it's actually targeted free tuition, but not just on income, as you say, there's some ethnic categories that might be, okay, involved as well. That's interesting.
Javier Botero: And not only ethnic, you know, you'll know, of course, that Colombia has gone through a process, I mean, in principle, full peace process. So people who were involved or, you know, victims, during the, during the, all of these violence. I mean, they also have, uh, free tuition in public institutions, and there are quite many of them.
Alex Usher: So all the groups that would be involved in the peace negotiations, they would benefit for, or their children would benefit from this.
Javier Botero: Uh, yeah, not only that, I mean, people who declare themselves victims during the whole, you know, period of violence in Colombia.
Alex Usher: Okay. Interesting. How much does this commitment cost? I mean, so, so what, like what's, what's being incurred here? Cause I've, I've noticed at the same time, there've been some stories in the Colombian press about, well, I mean, the, you, the government lost a tax reform vote just, just before Christmas. And that makes it harder to afford a whole bunch of things, I imagine. So, um, what's the financial— government's financial ability to keep a promise like that?
Javier Botero: You know, that's, that's one of the main issues and the big questions. And first of all, because no one really knows how much that costs. In Colombia, the autonomy of universities are very high. So every university determines the tuition, you know, even public ones. And there was, I mean, a greater heterogeneity on that. You know, you could find universities that were almost free, for, you know, poor students and that charge some tuition, depending on income, some that have, you know, a relatively high tuition. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's very difficult. So, so, I mean, it was, it's been really difficult and probably, you know, the case in Chile, you know, that it was, I mean, that was a big issue, you know, how to determine how much, government of the state would pass to universities from free tuition. So I would say that here is even worse, you know, because the way universities that charge very little so it wouldn't be unfair to keep them in that level. You know, giving them very little, while those universities that charge a lot would get much more. So what they came out at the end is that they work out something like an average, depending on the type of university, research, number of professors, and so on.
Alex Usher: So it's a, it's a per student subsidy based on the institution, not charging tuition.
Javier Botero: That's right, that's the free tuition program. Yeah.
Alex Usher: Yeah. I remember in Chile, I went down and spoke to them just before they, instituted their policy of gratuidad. So just as, as Madame Bachelet was, coming into power. And I remember they, they asked the question, which made no sense in English, they said, where do we set tuition so that tuition can be free? And I thought that was a— right? And it makes sense
Javier Botero: Yeah. Sure.
Alex Usher: you're talking about, but it
Javier Botero: Yeah. Because that's, you know, that's what determined how much money the university gets from the, from the government per student.
Alex Usher: Okay. So I understand that at the same time that the government is trying to force tuition down, it's also trying to reduce its expenditures on the student loan program, uh,  ISATEX. That seems a little bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul. What, what's the point of that? What's the, the logic behind, uh, free tuition, but lower student aid?
Javier Botero: first of all, free tuition, not as it is in Chile. Here in Colombia, it's only for state institutions,
Alex Usher: Right.
Javier Botero: institutions. You know, so private institutions don't get, free tuition. I mean, don't get the tuition that they used to get from students from the government. They don't. So, ISATEX, which is a, you know, a student loan, institution, uh, I mean, more than 50 years of experience, is mainly used for, students from the private sector, the students that go to private universities.
And you know, your point is very valid, and my, I would say first answer would be that it is based on ideological positions. You know, that education should be public and free. So I mean, the private sector shouldn't be there. Um, so they say, okay, we will will give free tuition in the state universities and don't help. I mean, if someone wants, if a student wants or a family wants to send the student to the private institution, just pay for that, you know, so that's why they thought that it was a good idea, to put the money only on on the public institutions. But of course, that hasn't helped at all. You know, the whole situation of the of this target of 500, 000 students because I mean, already it's been, you know, the budget of  ISATEX has been decreased and the situation for this year 2025 is is is actually very critic. Not only because of what I just said, but but because of what you said, you know, about not having the money. I mean, there is a deficit already, you know, we are starting the year and we are already in deficit. So, I'm sure that there will be some, more, cuts in in  ISATEX.
Alex Usher: It's time for us to take a short break. We'll be right back. And we're back. Uh, Javier, I remember that early on in his tenure, President Petro seemed to be quite taken by the Mexican model, uh, the, the Benito Juarez model, uh, popular universities, popular in quotation marks, um, located in remote locations. And maybe there may be some Venezuelan model he has in mind as well, because they, they've opened a lot of new universities too. Has there been much movement on this front in the last two years?
Javier Botero: A little bit, I would say, but but also let me add that that's not either a new policy, you know. We did this 20 years ago when I was working with the government with with what we call the Regional Centers of Higher Education, that, you know, the idea was that — to bring higher education to the rural and small towns in Colombia, because, you know, what, what you see is that the for those who can, you know, students from those, uh, songs that can go to, to, to a university, to higher education, they have to go to the big cities and most of them stay there. You know, so it's, it's a way, you know, of actually a brain drain, from the small cities to the big cities. And, and that's an issue. You, you, you really want the more, you know, equity and, and homogeneous development in a country.
So many countries actually, Venezuela at the time that we did this, that was 20—, 2002, 2003, Venezuela was also starting what they call them aldeas universitarias, like small town universities, with the same idea. Mexico did that and, and I have now, you know, a big, program, but, um, there are still many issues with that, and one of, of them is, you know, the, let's say the academic part, students from these regions are low, you know, the, the academic level is relatively low, uh, so you have to actually work a lot, to get them to a level that they actually can start the university program. And the second, you know, as most things is funding. You know, how do you fund this? Because of course, it would be very hard to expect that the students, you know, pay tuition to private universities in those, regions. And those have not been resolved yet.
Alex Usher: Okay. So recently, I think it was in September or October, the University of Antioquia in Medellín, uh, was the center of some very significant protests, some of which turned a little bit violent, I think. What sparked those demonstrations? Was that something about specific issues at that institution or was it about wider issues within, higher education in Colombia?
Javier Botero: I would say that the both, I mean, it's wider issues. I mean, issues that are common to most universities. But that in the  University of Antioquia, you know, have, let's say, uh, brought the institution to a more difficult situation. And it's really the funding, the financing of the universities, you know, uh,  University of Antioquia was one of those that actually charged very little tuition. You know, most students paid, a couple of dollars study semester and they actually increased the numbers of enrollment very much. And they actually joined, let's say, the policy 10 to 15 years, you know, of, of opening different campuses, you know, regional campuses in in in in a small towns at very high cost, you know, and, you know, they haven't gotten the money to actually, you know, cover all of that. So they have been in a very difficult financial situation. And, uh, so, you know, the students, just said, okay, what will happen with this university? They were starting, occurring, you know, delays in paying the teachers, especially, you know, what we have here in Colombia, our teachers, you know, teachers that are not really faculty, but that they go and teach you class and they paid for, for, for that specific hour. So, you know, the, the, the university actually get the, delayed on those payments and, uh, so students started then the unions, you know, join, especially the union of those type of, of, of teachers. And actually it did end up in, in closing the university. The university is now closed. And now we are discussing how will they, how they will actually end the last semester of last year. And it seems that they won't be able to do that.
Alex Usher: Sorry, did they close because of the protests or did they close because they couldn't make payroll?
Javier Botero: No, they, I mean both, you know, because, because the teachers joined the, the demonstrations and the strike. Uh, so, I mean, it was, it was not possible to, to have the university open. Actually, they tried, you know, to have some programs running virtually, you know, getting all what they had gotten from the, from the, uh, pandemic and so on, but it's, it's been very difficult.
Alex Usher: Okay, well, so the thing is, though, that to, you know, to regain some stability, both there and, you know, the rest of the country, you need a stable government, but, uh, the president's never had a majority in Congress, I don't think, he's losing key votes on taxes. He's recently lost a finance minister to a graph scandal, and he's only about 18 months away from the end of his term. Is there any prospect he regains the initiative and can and can forge a, a renewed policy in this area or is this going to be a really long lame duck period?
Javier Botero: I think the last is the most probable, you know, also because I mean, uh, you know, been three years, not, not, not even, no, it's been, yeah, less than three years and there have been three ministers and it, it looks like there will be another change in the ministry, you know, so there is no continuity in, in, in, even the policies. And, so, um, yeah, the situation in, the political situation is not getting better, it is getting worse, and you know, and approaching the elections next year, it will be even worse, you know, the position, polarizes even more. And, and president Petro is not one of those that, uh, you know, in those, in those situations, try to.
to calm down. But I mean, he just put, you know, gasoline on the
Alex Usher: straight ahead
Javier Botero: Yeah. So I'm sure that it will be very difficult, you know, maybe almost two years ago, they tried to pass a law, a general, what we call the statutory law on education. They couldn't. Um, now the minister was talking about, you know, passing a law just to change the funding model, which I must say is very archaic, it's terrible, you know, it doesn't incentivize universities to do anything.
Now, with free tuition, a little bit to admit the students, you know, but that's not really a good thing, a good solution. You know, because then, as we see in Antioquia, this, what this does, it does, it gets the problem, even worse. Uh, so no, I don't think that, much will happen in this, uh, 20 or 22 months that we have left.
Alex Usher: Right. So we're already seeing the 2026 presidential elections start to take shape Are any of the leading candidates likely to pursue policies in higher education, which are radically different from those of the current government? I mean you you mentioned that, to a large extent, what President Petro is doing is a continuation of the previous government. So do we expect continuity or change as we head towards those elections?
Javier Botero: You know, what, what I would say is that there, there, there will be very different positions in the candidates, you know. Because I mean, what, what you just said is not totally true. I mean, he took the free tuition and kept it, but, uh, but there are many things behind that and, and, and additional to that. Uh, so I do expect that some candidates, I mean, we'll have for sure, Alejandro Gaviria, who was the first minister of Petro just for a few months, and I'm sure that he, I mean, he's already a pre candidate, so, I mean, the high education issue, very popular, you know, because, I mean, you get the students to vote, uh, while, you know, you don't get, primary and secondary, students to vote. So candidates don't talk so much about the, the education in primary and secondary education, but they do talk about higher education and there are big issues. You know, I mean, higher education in Colombia needs a deep reform, you know, going far beyond the, the, the funding. Also, the funding is, is an important issue, but it goes much deeper than that. So I'm sure that it will be an issue and I expect that, some candidates will, will put to the table, good, uh, good proposals. And of course, what, uh, we'll have to wait and see is whether what happened with the proposals and, and, and who gets elected, you know, political situation in Colombia's, as in many parts of the world, it's very polarized and, polarized, you know, environments, uh, you know, not always the best choices get into office.
Alex Usher: Right. Well, Javier Botero, thank you so much for joining us today.
Javier Botero: It was my pleasure. Thank you very much.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany McLennan and Sam Pufek, and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers for joining in. If you have any questions or comments about today's episode, please don't hesitate to get in touch at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. Don't forget to join our YouTube channel. Never miss an episode of the World of Higher Education. Join us in one week's time when our guest will be freelance writer, Ben Wildavsky. He and I are going to be chatting about the 15th anniversary of his influential book, The Great Brain Race. Bye for now.