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In a country where higher education is public, free and has no quotas, there is a continuing downward trend in the number of applicants to study at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). This can be seen in the number of registrations for the first quarter of Common Basic Cycle (CBC) 2023. They fell 11.4% comparing with the previous year. Was 55,857 points for all his races compared to 63,044 in 2022.
This fall is more than 16% compared to the 2021 record of 66,651 registered. The motivation that year was virtuality, which was not only at UBA, where, during the coronavirus quarantine, there were also more registrations within the country and even from abroad.
If you do not take into account the extraordinary recovery two years ago, UBA grew. But in 2022, it already showed 4% fewer applicants, and today the figure is even below pre-pandemic records.
In the first quarter of 2019, 62,054 people were registered, which is 10% more than now, and earlier, in 2018, 58,626 people, which is 5% more. The last lowest was in 2017 with 53,383 points, but that number meant a 5% increase from the previous year.
Felipe Vega Terra, director of the CBC, tells Clarion that, despite a significant drop compared to last year, “tuition fees are very high”and that this downward trend “is a two-variable pattern.”
One culmination of average levels during the pandemic. “They spent the last years of high school in quarantine. In addition to the psychosocial, many students did not allow them to acquire knowledge in an ideal way. comment difficulties that are observed in subjects such as calculus and algebra.
Another photo, he said, economic situation. “This is the backdrop that young people think about. We are concerned about how they will graduate from high school and what prospects they have for college.”
Clarion consulted on the pace of CBC progress during the pandemic, meaning how many people have approved it during virtuality and the data, which takes “one and a half to two years” to process, is not yet closed.
“But we see that decreased the number of promoted (before the end of items) compared to 2019 and earlier,” Vega Terra predicts.
What does this fall mean in the university panorama? Marcelo Rabossi, doctor of pedagogy and professor of education at the school, also attributes this to something typical of economic crises.
“They affect the demand for higher education. In the private sector due to the inability to meet quotas. But they also affect the public sector. Many young people or stop studying because they have to go to workor reduce the number of hours they devote to studying, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will drop out,” he says. Clarion.
At the same time, he agrees with the director of the CBK that “if we want to increase the number of graduates, we must first solve problems at previous levelsfrom preschool to high school age.
“Not only to increase the number,” says Rabossi, “but also to ensure that graduates have the necessary skills for a successful university life. neither of those two things happen. We still have few secondary school graduates, and their level of education is much lower than satisfactory.”
Racing with more and less registered
With this general decrease in applicants to the pulp and paper mill, strictly speaking, we must start with those faculties that showed the largest drop and crushed the total number. And in one of Social sciencies you can talk about collapse.
26% fewer students were registered for this faculty in the first quarter than last year (1655 versus 2251). The trend has been traced since last year, when they were 30% less than in the first four months of 2021.
And compared to 2018, when Sociales reached almost 4,000 applicants, almost 58% fewer students registered in 2023: lost more than half in 5 years.
In the specialty “Sociology” was scored only 115 points.; in social work there were 242; in political science, 254; the majority is registered in the “Communication” section (636 registered); and labor relations – 408.
“This is a global trend. The set changes from the humanities to the natural sciences, technology, health. Fall in social media linked to productivitywhich draws attention not only to these professions, but also to general trends, such as the strength that certain disciplines – medical sciences, medicine, pharmacy, technology – have in real lifehe points out.
According to 2022 data, similar careers at Conurbano’s public universities are on the rise. As a sociologist at the University of San Martin (Unsam) and Tres de Febrero (Untref); o Social communication in Lomas de Zamora and Untref. Why is studying social sciences at UBA becoming less attractive?
“UBA competes with many universities, both private and public, in these professions. Political science for example, it competes with almost all AMBA universities. These are careers with less distinction and less tradition at UBA,” says the CBC director.
Social is not the only faculty that made it to the list of applicants for admission to UBA. IN Philosophy and letters they signed up 21% less than last year And in Right descent was from fifteen%.
There is one more key information: unlike Social Services, which has been falling for several years, Law is in its second year of falling. Autumn, which seemed seasonal, annual, could become a trend.
Speaking of professions with tradition and prestige, there is no doubt that UBA is the most attractive offer for various professions. Medicine is leading the way.
“This is a UBA race with no competition. Less registrations this year than last yeardown by 17%), of which there were 20,004, but coverage is still very high: 16624. We have established ourselves in traditional quarries, there is no transfer either to private or to the universities of Conurbano. Also in all those related to science and technology that are growing. Engineering will come in handy,” concludes Vega Terra.
The decline also occurred in agronomy (17%) and the economy. But in the field of psychology, which saw an 11% drop in enrollment from last year, the total enrollment for this career at UBA is greater than at entire universities.
They have grown compared to last year. dentistry18% (1187 against 1406 now), architecture and urban planningalmost 2% (7,267 versus 7,385), veterinary (2 and exact sciences.
As expected, careers that show attractiveness are in computing and computer science. And “perlite” new Bachelor of Data Science. In just four years of existence, for the second year in a row, it was the most elected at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences.
But his current 525 CBC subscribers are down from 599 last year.
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