Huge protests march against Argentina's education cuts

STORY: Hundreds of thousands of Argentinians filled the streets of Buenos Aires as they marched against President Javier Milei's budget cuts to education on Tuesday, which affect public universities.

The union-backed marches in the capital are the latest show of dissent over painful austerity measures, part of Milei's plan to undo Argentina's deep fiscal deficit, but which are causing hardship in the real economy.

People waved banners reading "Don't steal the next generations’ future" and "Public education is not negotiable."

National Technological University President Ruben Soro stood at the head of the protest.

"I think that education and the university have to be part of the solution to the crisis that our country is going through and not part of the problem."

A student rally hung banners at the foyer of one of Argentina's most recognized schools, the University of Buenos Aires.

While the university has educated five Nobel laureates and 17 presidents - it recently warned it could close soon after getting its budget slashed.

Student Abril Marcolongo says the scale of the cuts and inflation are hitting the school hard.

"The budget in force last year was extended, which means that we are operating with the same money, but in our country we have very high inflation. This means that if last year we had 100 pesos to function with, this year we only have 25 pesos, we have a budget cut of 75% in the national universities."

Argentina's public universities like UBA, which offer free undergraduate education, rely heavily on government funding.

In recent weeks, Milei has justified the cuts by repeating his claim that public universities are sites of ‘socialist’ indoctrination.

Argentina has faced inflation nearing 300%, but posted a third-straight monthly fiscal surplus in March, after Milei's laser focus on cost-cutting since taking office in mid-December.