Last Tuesday, November 4, the rectors of the country’s public universities arrived at the National Palace, summoned to meet with the president. They all arrived from their states hoping that the doctor would tell them how they will increase the budget for higher education, which in her 2026 Federal Budget suffers a cut of almost 5% compared to this year. But instead of talking about an improvement in resources for the troubled and saturated educational institutions, the president only recommended three things: “austerity, that they increase their enrollment and that they dialogue with their students.”
The disappointed faces of many of the rectors when they heard the president were more than evident and when leaving the Palace the comment among most of them was that the president’s speech was undoubtedly interesting and motivating, but everyone was wondering how to increase enrollment with less budget than this year. “It was a good gesture by the president to invite us, but it was disappointing that neither she nor Mario Delgado‘s SEP have supported us to increase the budget for 2026, instead of reducing it,” one of the rectors attending the meeting told us.
It was the first meeting that universities and higher education institutions throughout the Republic had with President Sheinbaum since she assumed power and in her speech the president never spoke of increasing resources and budget for higher education; On the contrary, in the statement published by the Presidency’s press area, it is only highlighted that “with respect to the autonomy of higher education institutions, the Chief Executive called on them to carry out an exercise of republican austerity to expand student enrollment and guarantee access to education.
The rectors of the public universities, from Baja California to Yucatán, passing through institutions such as the UNAM, the UdeG, the UANL, the UAS and each and every one of the study houses came out with a question mark on their faces: what about the resources to comply with what the president asks of us? Because while the PEF 2026 that is being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies reduces the budget for higher education, which goes from 188 thousand 288 million pesos this year, to 187 thousand 896 million pesos, that is, 4.7% less resources, the doctor preached to them that “The days of the paraphernalia of power, of privileges, are long gone, we can make a great effort for our students, the fewer privileges there are, the more enrollment It can be opened, it is feasible,” said the president.
And in the same tone as the president, her collaborators Mario Delgado, head of the SEP, Rosaura Ruiz, secretary of Science and Technology and the undersecretary of Higher Education, Ricardo Villanueva, made a lot of speeches, but no extraordinary budget support for the Universities. Delgado celebrated that “the university is a space to live with tranquility and freedom”, Rosaura celebrated that “it is the first time that the Government meets with the Universities to promote a collaborative strategy that marks a profound change”, and Undersecretary Villanueva proclaimed that “the SaberesMx platform will enrich the contents of the Universities”.
And the APA resources?, the rectors asked themselves again, who resembled those characters from the Mexican film “El Rincón de las Vírgenes”, by Alberto Isaac, in which the governor of the state who arrives in Comala after a strong earthquake that devastated the town and as the speech progresses, full of grandiose phrases and commonplaces, the victims turn to look desperate and disappointed because the ruler talked about everything, except the money that he would send them to rebuild their home. town.
And the thing is that even before they took them all to the Palace to listen to the speeches of the president and her officials, several rectors were already worried and desperate because in their various meetings with Undersecretary Ricardo Villanueva, they always asked him when he would meet with them to talk about the Budget and the demands and positions of the Universities, but instead, the SEP official always asked them to set up “peace days”, then “peace dialogues”, and thus he gave them pause, and When they asked him again when he would talk to them about the PEF 2026, he only answered: “If you want the doctor to help you with a bigger budget, you first have to earn it by doing what she asks.”
And the rectors did it and were never able to express their concerns and present their real needs for next year’s budget, neither to Secretary Mario Delgado, who never deigned to receive them, nor to Undersecretary Villanueva, who only sold them “mirrors”, something that the rectors do not explain, in the case of someone who just a year ago was rector of the University of Guadalajara and was always fighting for a bigger budget.
So, with cut budgets, requests for austerity and demands that they have to increase their enrollment of students and even support the new National Baccalaureate system, the rectors of the Universities and higher education institutions in Mexico will not be able to prevent the crisis that the public higher education system is currently dragging on from deepening and in the end, excited when they were called to the National Palace, they remained like those woodmen from San Juan, who asked for bread and what they were given was pure verb and their recipe for “republican austerity”.
INDISCRETE NOTES… Following the early resignation of Judge Janine Otálora from the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Branch of the Federation, who decided not to continue in office despite the fact that the judicial reform authorized her to remain in that position until 2027, the Senate was expected to appoint a substitute judge who, by mandate of the law, corresponded to the second best positioned in the senatorial vote when the new judges were elected. That position corresponds to Rocío Balderas, who, more clearly, was the legal director of Segob during the time of Adán Augusto López as secretary. But strangely, on the recommendation of the Court itself, the Senate decided not to make that appointment and leave the jurisdictional body with only 6 magistrates instead of the 7 that according to law must make up the upper chamber of said Court. And, according to sources from the TEPJF, this decision was endorsed by Adán Augusto, the leader of the Senate, with the argument that “the replacement mechanism is not clear because Otálora’s resignation was based on what the Constitution said before the judicial reform.” But behind the decision to leave the Electoral Tribunal, once again incomplete, they tell us, it is rather due to a conspiracy armed by the “triad” that has controlled that body for more than a year, made up of magistrates Mónica Soto, Felipe Fuentes Barrera and Felipe de la Mata, who would have convinced the new president of the Tribunal, Gilberto Bátiz, that it was not advisable to make the replacement appointment of Otálora and offered him a better chance to share the positions that Janine had, who There are about 25 spaces in his presentation, in addition to some spaces in the Administration Committees of the organization. Gilberto Gil accepted and, according to sources, Adán Augusto also agreed to block the arrival of Rocío Balderas, after gossip circulated in which it was said that Balderas was “very close” to General Audomaro Martínez Zapata, former director of the CNI, which would have made the leader of the Senate, who has had differences with Audomaro, willing to block Rocío from arriving as a magistrate to replace Otálora. But it turns out that behind the gossip and the agreement that the triad of Soto and the Felipes negotiated with President Gilberto Bátiz, the sources of the Court tell us, what there is in reality is a political maneuver by the three magistrates to maintain control and governance of the TEPJF because, although they no longer have the presidency, with their three votes, to which is added that of the new magistrate Claudia Valle who is close to them, they will continue to have the majority in a court of 6 and not of 7 members, with which, in addition to maintaining control of important decisions and votes, the positions that corresponded to Otálora were also distributed. That is to say that, even though Gilberto Bátiz is now the president, he will have neither a majority nor governance in the Electoral Court because he only has his vote and the other remaining vote, de Reyes Mondragón does not go with him nor with the triad that, aligned as it has been for some time with Morena, will continue to command the body that qualifies and validates the elections in Mexico. There is no doubt that Machiavellianism and the grid are also given to electoral magistrates… And speaking of high-level gossip yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies, in the middle of the legislative session, a huge blanket appeared unfurled that was hanging from the upper steps of the room. When all the deputies and attendees at the session began to turn to look at the huge canvas, it was printed with a photograph showing the national leader of Morena, Luisa María Alcalde, sitting on a beach in Acapulco, next to the controversial deputy Arturo Ávila, spokesman for the Morena faction, who is holding Alcalde’s little girl in his arms. That photo, which had already been leaked on social networks, was accompanied by the legend: “While this pair of cynical and corrupt people walk on the beach, they murder Mexicans.” The appearance of the blanket, as in that novel by García Márquez, the Chronicle of a Death Foretold, aroused the curiosity of those present in the legislative enclosure who began to approach and take photos and record videos with their cell phones of the enormous pamphlet that could well be titled: “Chronicle of a Love Foretold”, of those endogamous loves that today abound in the new golden caste that governs us… The dice made Capicúa. Neither Snake nor Ladder, but quite the opposite. But we do continue, Up and forward!, as the Devil of Saint Jerome said.
