Each place that is offered in Spanish public universities in the degrees of Medicine has 11 applicants. A ratio worthy of the most requested oppositions that, together with the fact that the supply does not grow to the rhythm of the demand, causes the cutting note of that race to be above 13 (over 14) in a good part of the country’s campus.
In veterinarian the proportion is slightly lower, eight to one, but is also among the most requested areas, such as nursing or psychology, as can be seen from the official statistics of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
This average hides the competition for the degree of concrete medicine in some centers, as in the Public University of Navarra or that of Cantabria, where almost 40 applicants are recorded for each place offered. In total there are 12 degrees throughout Spain in which 20 or more people aspire to each place offered, as can be checked in the search engine.
On the other side, tourism and hospitality is the only area of study in which less people are pre -instal of the places offered. In this group of degrees there has been a fall in the continuous demand since 2017. But it is not the only one that does not fill the places: up to 20 areas have an occupancy rate of less than 100% once the enrollment is formalized, as observed in the graph. The areas that have managed to fill their classrooms systematically in recent years are physiotherapy and nutrition, medicine, computer, nursing, sports, veterinary, mathematics and statistics and, finally, psychology.
The combination of this supply and demand translates into an adaptation rate of 76.43%, according to ministry data. That is, three out of four people could enroll in their first option. But the data changes in the different realities that each teaching branch has: in the engineering, architectures and careers of humanities, 80% or more of the students can do what they want where they want, data that falls up to 66% in health sciences (where medicine is fits), 68% in science and rises to 78% in social and legal sciences.
The total offer of places has been stagnant for years
In total, in Spain the face-to-face public universities offered 245,956 places in the 2023-24 course (the last one of which there are consolidated data), a figure that remains stable in the last 10 years: in the 2015-16 academic year there were a thousand more. That million -seater room received a total of 475,500 pre -registration: there are almost two requests for each. When a more detailed analysis is lowered by degrees, the offer has raised something in the most requested, such as mathematics, medicine or computer science, but it has not done so that demands, as shown in the last years of the number of applicants per place, which in those areas does not stop growing.
This statistic gives at least the reason to Minister Diana Morant, who has been criticizing the lack of places in public universities because, she says, the autonomous communities do not contribute sufficient financing to their centers to open more. “It is not that you have had bad notes,” he argued in relation to the increase in the cutting notes registered in recent years, “it is not that enough registration is being offered by the public university, and this is due to the infinance of the universities. We talk a lot about Mrs. Ayuso and what happens in Madrid, but it is that the case of Ayus Press after the Council of Ministers last Tuesday.
“For example, to study medicine, cutting notes are 13 and peak, and this does not mean that the universities of our country have become elitists, but the squares with the best students are ended,” he gave as an example, although medicine is a peculiar area. In this specific case there is a drive to open new degrees throughout the country, both in the public and private, with the result that in the last five years 15 new powers have been opened against the criteria of the deans and the ministry, which do not believe it necessary.
The private one reacts
This stagnation of the public offer is taking advantage of the private university, which has detected a niche in which to grow before demand in certain areas. In the last eight years, private centers have gone from entering 1,595 new medical students to 2,118 in the 2023-24 course (32% more), a figure that has surely increased by the aforementioned opening in recent years of new faculties, for example that of Loyola in Andalusia last year.
Something similar happens in other areas. In the rest of Health Sciences Studies (thus appear on the Ministry’s website) the 5,915 new students in 2015-16 were 8,133 in 2023-24, a 37%rise. In architecture, the increase reaches 42%, in computer science, more than duplicated to grow 166% and in mathematics and statistics they have gone from not offering it (it was a career without a cut -off a few years ago) to have 665 new students.
9,000 euros per student and year
The OECD places the cost of a university square in the environment of 9,000 euros per student and year, but in Spain that figure rises to 13,700 euros per student, EFE reports. According to a study by Funcas conducted by economists from the Bank of Spain, the Autonomous University of Madrid and King Juan Carlos, higher education institutions are involved in infrastructure and hiring of personnel. In addition, this study adds, there is a bureaucracy that complicates the implementation of new degrees, since they require a verification process that can last up to two years.
The Funcas Researcher and Professor of the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid (URJC) Ismael Sanz points out that 15,000 public places would be needed more every year in the so -called Stem races (science, technology, engineering and mathematics, for its acronym in English) and regrets that administrations do not take into account their labor insertion. Because it is a fact that influences the demand, Montserrat Álvarez ends, of the CyD Foundation. “A degree with an expected salary 10% higher than that of another degree tends to receive 6% more pre -registration,” he illustrates. “Public administrations do not react to labor needs,” he laments.
The authors of this study also argue that “some universities can see high selectivity and high cutting notes as a way of maintaining an image of exclusivity and academic quality”, an affirmation that floats in the university world but difficult to demonstrate. It is a certainty that universities are drowned: the average financing of the Spanish system rose 20% between 2008 and 2023, while inflation did 34%. This evolution is an effective loss of resources.
Source: www.eldiario.es
