Title: Pandemic Drives Millions From Latin America’s Universities - The New York Times
Headings: Pandemic Drives Millions From Latin America’s Universities
Pandemic Drives Millions From Latin America’s Universities
Content: When she had the energy, she pulled out her cello to play fragments of Bach for fellow protesters. The strike ended on Aug. 28 without the government meeting their demands. Image
Gabriela Delgado is one of several students who spent 18 days on hunger strike, demanding the government cover their tuition. “ I don’t see any other way to pay for the semester,” she said. Credit...
Federico Rios for The New York Times
For generations, many of Latin America’s biggest economies have been centered around commodities — oil, gold, large-scale agriculture — leaving governments dependent on sometimes dangerous environmental and work practices, and exposed to boom-and-bust cycles caused by prices that are set globally. In recent years, as developing countries in Asia and elsewhere have moved further into e-commerce and high-tech sectors, Latin America has fallen behind. The way out, said Eric Hershberg, who leads the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, is through higher education. Despite more than five decades of civil war — and a long history of stark inequality — Colombia had been a symbol of that change, doubling higher education enrollment rates since 2000 and building new universities. Since the pandemic hit, the government of President Iván Duque had made “an effort without precedent” to help students, investing the equivalent of $260 million, said María Victoria Angulo, the country’s education minister. Some public universities have been able to cover tuition for all students, at least for the semester.