Though no one will probably read my post at the end of this thread, I will throw in my worthless $.02. My opinion may not be quality, but it sure is FREE and is formed by my UBA education!
I wonder, how many of you guys are actually studying here??? With all due respect to your opinions.
So yea, I agree with @Dada and @Ries and @bajo_cero2, how many people are talking about UBA and public universities in the abstract?
As a foreigner who has actually studied in UBA and UNLP in undergraduate and graduate Económicas, I constantly remind Argentines, that regardless of their party affiliation, they should be incredibly proud of these flagship public university institutions, warts and all. UBA is not the government not by far, if you mean the government as the current ruling party. Though Axel was a well-liked professor who rose to fame there, UBA Económicas is anything but K. If you know anything about the politics of Económicas, you know it's been controlled by Lista Naranja, a front for Radicalismo (not Scioli!), for quite a long time now. Still, don't get caught up in the current political coyuntura; public university education existed long before the current government and is the patrimonio of all Argentines. Argentina's public universities have survived in the modern world of simplistic market thinking. UBA is world class but still open to the masses of hopeful students who flood them at the beginning of each semester when classes are standing room only (after midterms, the halls are much quieter) and embracing those two sometimes opposing missions is part of what makes Argentina special.
One time, I asked my DH what purpose does it serve to throw tax money into a public free university if 90% of the students who enter can't graduate, don't have the academic preparation or ability to graduate? He said it depends on your vision of education. If education is the production of sheets of paper with a degree on it, then UBA is (re-contra) failing its mission. However, if you see education as an intangible, simply increasing the knowledge and skills of the population, the ability of citizens to live a full and thinking life, then UBA is completing its mission.
The fact Ries mentioned ("I know that in some of the programs my friends teach in, they start out with 700 kids, and 4 or 5 years later, 50 finish the program.") is basically showing how inefficient a system without proper selection is: if less than 10% finish their studies, it basically means that 90% of students just wasted a few semester and thus education funds were wasted.
I studied at UB universty before UBA, everybody was approved as soon as they pay the tuition. Is this efficient? No. The level was super low just like high school.
On the other hand, 90% of teachers works for free at UBA so, what's the waste? Electricity? Come on!
I teached 9 years for free at UBA so i know what I mean. Only the master of the cathedra had a salary (almost nothing) and his almost 50 followers worked for free.
I think some of the people talking in the abstract are missing the point about the cost side in UBA that @bajo_cero2 pointed out; there may be 700 students in a class where 50 finish and of course there are building capacity fixed costs for that number of students, but variable cost per student is way less than in other countries. My husband is a prof in Económicas in two catedras, ad-honorem (fancy title for doesn't get paid). This is a culture thing; this is the way he gives back for working in the public sector as an economist. It's a social and academic expectation.
Like most things that "make sense" and "sound fair", it doesn't take into account so many things. Particularly reality. The fact that if the state controls all education, the state controls what is taught (I know, that doesn't bother you - you believe the state should tell you what and how to think). The fact that many people will not actually benefit from education - when tied directly to their future earnings potential I mean - that's what most people go to university for, right? Not to learn Latin and art and literature and learn more about humanity, etc, and get a good liberal education to expand the mind. The fact that there is a real cost for each student that attends school. The fact that unprepared students will indeed suck up resources intended for those who are both capable and have a desire to learn.
No one tells him what to teach; no one tells him to spend all day every day Saturday preparing his classes. But he does. No one threw wasted taxpayer money at him or the other over 70% of assistants who teach for free in Económicas. There are so many people like him who feel it is an honor and a privilege (though a pain in the neck, yes) to be appointed to work your butt off as part of a cátedra in UBA. Of course, as an UBA-trained economist, it's not lost on me that these are private costs, albeit not accounting costs to the government. However, this makes it all the more impressive that an institution has successfully aligned private and social costs-benefits in such a way that top professionals chose to volunteer their time in the service of public education.
UBA has its own politics, its own disorganization - yes, it takes a year and a half to walk graduation after you've presented your last final - but on the day-to-day teaching/learning level, it looks more like libertarian anarchy than government bureaucracy. Teachers bring their own supplies and keep teaching through all manners of interruptions, noise, lack of air conditioning and heat and wifi and of course, toilet paper. In Económicas, this has improved somewhat with the new addition inaugurated in 2011. When you see how posh our US universities, this really feels like the triumph of education at all odds. In this way, UBA is more like real life. In real life, nobody tells you what hoops to jump through. You make your own hoops or at least you search around and find the hoops, and you jump through them. Succeeding only when life sets you up for it, anyone can do; failing a course and then getting up back up and passing it the second or fourth time prepares you for life, especially in this economy. This chaos makes an UBA education inefficient, as @Nikad pointed out, from the point of view of the student. However, this is inefficiency in terms of private time to achieve similar results, but certainly not cost inefficiency.
So of course, free public terciary education ("equality of opportunity") will not solve economic inequality (nor primary and secondary education inequality, reflected in PISA) because of the barriers people have mentioned, particularly poor pre-college preparation for poor kids. Most graduates, at least in Económicas, come from the top 10% of the socioeconomic class. In fact, many an economist has made the argument whether countries with high rates of poverty can afford a free tertiary system which is effectively a transfer of wealth to the upper classes. However, as others have pointed out, free university creates a large class of cheap, talented and dogged professionals, which does serve economic development in a globalized world.
For me, personally, despite the obvious downsides of expat life here, the high and wide level of education of the middle class is what makes Buenos Aires such a great place to live! And a lot of that has to do with Argentina's long historical commitment to public education.
