Ayuso uses Sánchez's daughters to defend university privatization in Madrid: 13 private versus six public

Isabel Díaz Ayuso has once again resorted to Pedro Sánchez's family life to avoid an uncomfortable debate about her own management. The regional president of Madrid has responded to the announcement of new quality controls for private universities by asking why the head of the Executive can send his daughters to one of these centers and the rest of Spaniards supposedly cannot.

The premise used by Ayuso is false. The Government has not announced the prohibition of private universities nor has it proposed preventing families from choosing one of them. The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, has announced that Sánchez will present a proposal in September to curb the "savage privatization" promoted by some communities and strengthen the requirements for opening new centers.

Morant has explained that the measure will follow the request made by the Conference of Rectors so that affiliated centers also need a binding report from quality agencies. The initiative would deepen the royal decree approved in October 2025, which tightened the teaching, research, economic, and personnel conditions necessary to create a university. Since its entry into force, no community has presented a new project.

Thirteen private universities and only six public ones

The freedom to study at a private university is far from being threatened in Madrid. The Community itself counts 13 private universities compared to six public ones, in addition to the central headquarters of UNED. The last public university in Madrid, Rey Juan Carlos, began its activity in 1996. Since then, all institutional growth has occurred in the private sector.

In the last decade alone, Madrid has gone from eight to 13 private universities. In the 2024-2025 academic year, there were more than 129,000 students enrolled in private and Church universities, also counting the Distance University of Madrid. The own and affiliated centers of the six public universities gathered nearly 220,000 students.

The private offering has grown at the same time that public places remained practically stagnant. Morant has pointed out that, in Spain as a whole, the places in private universities have doubled during the last decade, while public ones have barely increased by 2%. The business volume of the sector already exceeds 3,000 million euros.

Ayuso now turns a discussion about quality and planning into a supposed ideological persecution. Her message avoids mentioning that the creation of public universities and the recognition of private ones corresponds to the autonomous communities and their parliaments, which must verify compliance with the requirements established by state regulations.

The bill for years of underfunding

The growth of the private offering has coincided in Madrid with a long financial crisis of public universities. Since Ayuso's arrival to the regional presidency, the percentage of Madrid's GDP allocated to these centers fell from 0.73% in 2019 to 0.68% in 2024, while the enrollment in private universities increased by around 42%.

Madrid continues to be the community that allocates the least funding per university student, with less than 7,000 euros per student compared to a national average of over 8,600. This gap has deteriorated staff, buildings, laboratories, and basic services for years, leading several institutions to a critical economic situation.

The Complutense University closed 2024 with an adjusted deficit of 33.19 million and had to approve an economic-financial plan. The Rey Juan Carlos ended 2025 with a deficit exceeding 76 million. The rectors even warned of an "unsustainable" situation and demanded stable funding for months to avoid new cuts and allow for staff renewal.

Ayuso's Government finally signed a multi-year model in March until 2031, presented by the Community with a global allocation of 14,790 million euros. The agreement provides predictability after years without a stable framework, although it comes after protests, strikes, and serious treasury problems on some campuses.

Sánchez will present his proposal in September. What has been advanced so far speaks of binding evaluations and quality controls to open new centers, while Ayuso has preferred to introduce the president's daughters into the controversy even before the text is known.