• Students with unemployed parents, students from low income households, single mothers or students who have to work to support their families: this is the situation of more than 2,300 youngsters who entered Universidad de Santiago this year, thanks to the tuition-free education program enacted by the Government. All of them have something in common: they had lost all hope of pursuing higher education.

This important benefit bridges gaps and opens new paths to inclusion and promotes equity and social mobility, confirming that education is a right and not a consumer good.

“As a mother, I thought I had to quit my future, because you cannot afford a degree when you are paid the minimum wage. My parents could not help me either. This is as a godsend, because the possibility of studying at no cost was just a beautiful aspiration,” Eillene Zúñiga, a student at the Computing and Informatics Engineering program, said.

“I come from another university and this is an incentive to complete my program. I am being provided with the tools I require to focus on studying,” Gustavo Hurtado, a student at the Informatics Civil Engineering program, said.

“It is important to us to have access to tuition-free education, without grants or complementary loans, because you start feeling that education- although the benefit is still  for some students- is for us, that it is not a business for which we have to pay millions,” Catalina Yáñez, another student at the Informatics Civil Engineering program, said.

For his part, Alejandro Marín says that his father is currently unemployed, so he could not think of any possibility of entering the university. “This will help me to focus on studying and my only goal will be to complete the Publicity program,” he said.

Finally, Alejandra Gallardo’s case is not different from the ones above. She is the first person of her family to enter higher education. “I am very happy. I have never thought of it, as my mother works at a fruit and vegetable market. She considers attending the Building Technology program a “big challenge”.

Thanks to the tuition-free education program enacted by the Government, they have now the possibility of pursuing higher education.

Translated by Marcela Contreras