K I)
SK»«;iO hORANTKS SV(,M \
Trying to rise above Third World povorty: Strolling across IJNAM's sprawling campus
i n»i|n on i m-1 ami puses anu out ui t ne i ray i ne si uaents were
allowed to strike. They organized two massive rallies in the capi
tal s Zocalo (central square*—and, without suffering one arrest or
injury, they forced UN AM rector Jorge ('arpi/.o to suspend indefi
nitely his proposed reforms. "This was a great success for the
student movement," says Imanol Ordorika, a 2H-year-old physics
student, above all, because we students had suffered 15 years of
consecutive defeats in the universities."
It began as a rather parochial, ivory-tower dispute between
university bureaucrats and defiant students. From its founding in
15al until tin* late 1960s, the national university had been regard
ed as the country's pre-eminent institution of higher education, a
sort of Harvard, t'altech and MIT rolled into one. Five of the last
seven Mexican presidents (de la Madrid included (graduated f rom
t he l N AM, and most of de la Madrid’s cabinet ministers are fellow
alumni During a 40-year span that began in the earls 1900s, the
l NAM evolved into a kind of academic factory cranking out the
Unions of managers, technicians, profes
sionals and bureaucrats Mexico needed to
modernize itseconomvand pull itselfout of
Third World poverty.
When the 80-building UNAM campus
opened in the mid-1950s, the student body
stood at 38,400. Including students who
attend 14 IN AM-chartered high schools in
Mexico City, the university’s enrollment
now hovers around 840,000. Many of the
I’NAM’s current problems can be blamed
on its bloated size. The university’s budget
has failed to keep pace with the school’s
growth. Government subsidies underwrite
95 percent of the budget, and skidding oil
prices in recent years have forced sharp
cuts in public-sector spending. Successive
UNAM budgets have felt the ax.
No money: That hastranslated intooutdat
ed text books and a decaying physical plant;
the school’s central library was closed for
nearly a year because there was no money
for repairs. Meager faculty salaries of be
tween $250 and $400 a month force most
tenured professors to moonlight. Once a
ticket toa rewardingand well-paying job, a
UNAM diploma has lost much of its value
amid the country s worst economic crisis in 50 years, so most
Mexican families who can afford to now send their children to
expensive, privately run universities instead. UN AM’s current
student body is largely-drawn from lower-middle-class families.
Named to the UNAM’s top post in January 1985, law professor
Jorge C arpi/.osoon realized t hat sound hing had to be done about the
once proud university. Last yearC'arpi/.osubmitted an unflinching
diagnosis” that shocked prominent alumni. The rector disclosed,
among other findings, that fewer than half of the undergraduates
who entered the UNAM between 1972 and 1981 completed their
courses of study and that nine out of 10 graduate students were
flunking out Though t he cost to t he school of educating a graduate
student for one year totaled S310, that student was liable for a
tuition payment of less than 25 cents. So last fall. Car pizo proposed a
sweeping package of reforms that would have hiked fees for gradu
ate st udent standardized examsand eliminated automatic ad mis
sion forgraduatesofthe 14 UNAM-chartered high schools. A quasi
Activists
Abroad
Whether they were fighting
to blink tuition hikes or for
freedom of the national
press, students around the
world made their voices
heard this year. (From left)
A n tigovernmen t studen ts
rioted in Seoul; in Pans,
marchers were peaceful;
rallies led by leftists in Ma
drid turned violent; Chi
nese demonstrators sparked
a repressive backlash.
ANTIIONV SI \l' BLACK ST\K
I>m \l Kh ■) Nil INK I* \1{|* HCII In limn I'