Private universities soon to outnumber publics in Spain

Spain could soon have more private universities than public ones if current trends continue, with experts raising concerns about quality, equity and an adverse impact on public institutions.

At present, there are 91 active universities in Spain, of which 50 are public and 41 are private. Five more private institutions have already been approved by the government, with more in the pipeline; their numbers have almost tripled in the past three decades. The newest public university, meanwhile, is the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, which opened in 1998.

While private universities’ share of Spain’s student population is only about a fifth, 2023-24 saw them claim just over half of master’s enrolments for the first time. As a decentralised country, Spain’s autonomous communities have the power to approve new universities; the proliferation of private institutions, therefore, varies in intensity across the country.

“The biggest expansion is, by far, in the region of Madrid,” said the sociologist Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca Rodriguez, a professor at Carlos III University of Madrid. “There is an explicit bet on private universities, while the regional government refuses to increase the budget of public universities.”

Spanish private universities are primarily owned by religious institutions or major conglomerates. They can charge far higher tuition fees than public universities, which have their fees set by regional governments, prompting criticisms that they privilege wealthy students and compound social inequality.

“The comparative advantage of private universities lies in offering graduate programmes with clear professional profiles, aimed at the labour market – doctors, managers, dentists, architects, psychologists and so on,” said Professor Sánchez-Cuenca. “There is a sort of bottleneck regarding graduate programmes in the public university system and private universities fill this gap.”

Ángela Mediavilla, head of the technical office at the CYD Foundation, which analyses the developmental impact of Spanish universities, told Times Higher Education that “private universities may have the flexibility and also the resources to detect the needs in the market. Private universities are focusing more on studies that are in demand from students, which can lead to better conditions [for graduates] in the labour market.”

With the quality of private universities coming under scrutiny, a 2023 law introduced stricter conditions for the establishment of new institutions, while the national government formed a working group earlier this year in order to “reinforce the academic, economic, equipment and teaching-level requirements to create a new university institution”. Some new universities, however, have “[found] ways of circumventing requisites with the help of regional governments”, Professor Sánchez-Cuenca claimed.

Moreover, he noted, private universities are predominantly teaching universities, rather than research-intensive institutions. “I have no bias against private universities – some of the top universities in the world are private,” he said. “The problem in Spain is that private universities are conceived as purely economic investments, with no commitment at all to the generation of knowledge.”

Public universities, meanwhile, have expressed fears that nearby private institutions will threaten their recruitment success. The University of La Rioja, for instance, publicly expressed “deep discomfort” regarding reports that the private, online International University of La Rioja planned to begin in-person teaching; ultimately, the universities and the regional government agreed to coordinate their offers to avoid conflict.

“In previous years, there was a kind of equilibrium between the public universities and the private ones,” said Ms Mediavilla. But the rise in private institutions, she said, could lead to “competition” between the two systems. “I think that we need some years to really know the impact.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com