Transcription
Investment funds that buy to sell. Local entrepreneurs, visionaries, and well-connected. Church foundations fighting to maintain their social influence. The administration withdraws and the sharks take advantage of the gap. [music] I am Juan Lu Sánchez. Today on a topic of the day, the money trail. Who is behind private universities? [music] One thing before we start. Hello, I'm Ignacio Escolar, director of eldiario.es. Brave journalism is only possible when there are committed people behind it who sustain it. Help us continue to do exclusive investigations and shield ourselves from the powerful to keep telling you what others don't want you to know. Become a member. Become a member at eldiario.es/socio. When 2026 ends, there will be more private universities than public universities in Spain. The shift will have been consummated when the last details of the six new private universities planned for this year are processed. If everything goes as planned, there will be 50 public universities [music] and 54 private universities in Spain. The reason for this phenomenon is the governments of the autonomous communities, which in some places have hit the accelerator on this path, as in Madrid, where there are already 14 private universities and six public ones. The model is spreading. In Andalusia, for example, there are 10 public universities, but in just 3 years, they have gone from one to five private university centers. Some of these centers are online, but they will have the same accreditation as a public one. Some time ago, we did a chapter on how these university degree vending machines work. I'll leave you the link in the description of this episode. Today, we focus on who is behind this boom of private higher education centers. An area that in Spain has suddenly become an economic sector, a booming and very lucrative economic sector. Daniel Sánchez Caballero. Hello. Hello. Daniel Sánchez Caballero is a journalist for eldiario.es. He specializes in education. Dani, is university education suddenly an economic sector, a business? Give us some figures. Well, to give us an idea of how the market is and the evolution it has undergone in recent years, since 2019, that is, in 6 years, not counting this one, 11 private universities have opened. 11. This means that two are opening every year. This evolution has led to the sector basically doubling its turnover in a decade. From 100 million euros annually, they have gone to 3,700 million, and there are many centers, not all of them because not all are non-profit, but those that are for-profit have centers that are achieving double-digit annual returns, close to 10%. That is practically unheard of in any sector. Dani, let's start to break down who is behind, who is behind the private universities that are opening lately in Spain, what kind of companies are they. Well, on the one hand, there are quite large groups like Planeta, there is the Spanish Banking Association, and there are also individual banks. Abanca has just opened one, well, a few years ago, a center in Galicia. There are large international companies that have landed in Spain, you have the international group Tech Education, Global Academy Network, which is going to open a university in Extremadura, and these have a presence in America, both in the United States and in several South American countries. There are companies that come from the FPERNA and have also made the leap to vocational training. A second group would be formed by the church. And here there are, well, from the Episcopal Conference itself, there are groups like the Jesuits, the Legionaries of Christ, there is Opus Dei, there are also some lay people close to the Church who have opened centers, and then other universities that formally have the form of a company but are driven by individuals. Diego del Alcázar Silvela has El University, which has just opened a university in Madrid. Miguel Arrufat is the historic owner of Unir, for example, and has also entered Villanueva. The Segovia family, which owns the SEC group, has Camilo José Cela. José Aneregeta, who manages several sports clubs in Euskadi. He has Eunid in Victoria, which is also relatively new. Gabriel Calzada, who is a Canarian economist, opened the Espérides in the Canary Islands. And apart from these three large groups I've mentioned, investment funds are also entering now. Currently, EQT has the European University of, well, there are several European universities, the one in Andalusia, the one in the Canary Islands, also in Madrid, and the Zimben fund, Cimben, and another called Mubadala have recently acquired the Alfonso X El Sabio University of Madrid and have another newly opened campus in Andalusia, in Malaga. Investment funds involved in the university business. It's strange, isn't it? For someone who doesn't know how that world works a bit, because investment funds in theory get into very profitable businesses to buy at one price and shortly after sell at a significantly higher price. You've already told us that the education business is profitable, but that profitable and more, I would say. The example of investment funds is quite symptomatic of how this sector is. The arrival of these funds is relatively recent, around 2018. The CVC fund, which bought the Alfonso X El Sabio University in 2019, invested about 1,000 million euros, more or less. It has just sold it for exactly double. 2,000 million euros for something it bought for 1,000 million in 6 years. I think that's quite illustrative. And well, there are more funds involved. Now there's the Swedish EQT. Portoovelo Capital has bought a stake in Proeduca, which is the group behind Unir, and more funds are entering, and always with the philosophy that funds have, which is to enter for profit and exit quickly, because the investment has to be returned. Funds don't stay long-term. So, if they are there, it's because they have seen that there is money and that there is quick money, relatively quick, at least. Let's talk about the church. We know it's an important player in private universities for a very long time, right? From Opus Dei to the Jesuits. But tell us, Dani, well, behind which universities are different religious orders. Well, the Catholic Church has always been very closely linked to the university. In fact, the first universities in history belonged to the Catholic Church. The same has happened in Spain. The Episcopal Conference has the Pontifical University of Salamanca. It also manages the Pontifical University of Comillas, although in this case it is through the Jesuits. We have Opus Dei, which has the University of Navarra, which is one of the most prestigious in the country within the private sector. We have the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They have recently opened ESIC, which is one of the new universities. And then, as I mentioned, there are lay groups that orbit around the Church. Here, for example, we have the Catholic Association of Propagandists, which owns CEU, the historic CEU, which has several universities throughout Spain. It has just opened a new campus in Andalusia. We have UCAM of Murcia, which belonged to José Luis Mendoza Pérez, who has since passed away, he transferred it to his wife, who is a very powerful person in Murcia. And well, more or less, as you see, there are different entities, both more official and more satellite in the university world. Now we continue, Dani, but let's zoom in on some examples of private universities to better understand this phenomenon. Sergi Pitar, colleague and director of eldiario.es in the Valencian Community. Hello. Hello, Juan Lu. Sergi, you have several paradigmatic examples of university education privatization there, especially during the government of Francisco Camps. I'd like you to tell us about a controversy that perhaps wasn't widely known outside of Valencia at the time, right? Francisco Camps promoting the birth of a university promoted by the church that began to compete with another church university with more tradition. What happened there? Yes, that's right. It's the Catholic University of Valencia, which was totally rewarded and protected by Francisco Camps. It should be remembered that here in the Valencian Community, the historic university of the Church was CEU, [music] which belongs to the Christ propagandists. But it's still not known why Francisco Camps decided to promote this Catholic University from the Archbishopric of Valencia, and it was by giving it very juicy degrees, like setting up the Faculty of Medicine or other highly demanded degrees so that it could start up. At the moment, the Catholic University of Valencia is a real monster with several faculties and degrees of all kinds, in social sciences, in health. Well, when Francisco Camps blindly supported the Catholic University of Valencia, which was practically his personal bet, and by the way, where he has also been a professor, this obviously generated a lot of antipathy and a lot of annoyance in CEU and among the Christ propagandists, who saw the creation of the Catholic University of Valencia as an attack. In the end, the Valencian PP had to compensate them, giving them new degrees and also other types of benefits to continue growing. In fact, CEU [music] Cardenal Herrera, which is the name of the CEU University here in Valencia, has specialized in Erasmus. And it should be remembered that this university is in a very small municipality in northern Valencia called Alfara del Patriarca, which has about 2,500 to 3,000 inhabitants, and there the massive arrival of Erasmus students has driven up the price of rent and housing, and it is very difficult to find housing in Alfara del Patriarca and in the neighboring municipality of Moncada, which is much larger, but which also suffers that pressure from Erasmus students who go to study at the private CEU Cardenal Herrera University. Sergi, in the Valencian Community there are four private centers and five public centers, but these universities have not always been born as private centers. There is a very clear case of direct privatization of a center that was public and was privatized. That's right, Juan Lu. Look, in 2000, at the beginning of the 21st century and with very good judgment, the Generalitat Valenciana created the Valencian International University, known as UV in its English acronym. This university started up, but when the 2013 crisis arrived, it was one of the public companies that the Valencian government divested itself of to get money. It sold 70% to the Planeta group for 4 million euros, and that was in 2013. And now we are in 2024, and in the latest income statements, and with private management, the university bills more than 110 million euros and earns more than 5 million euros in profit. It is a university whose current management is very close to the Popular Party. As we already reported in the newspaper, it was the first to hire Salome Pradas, who was the Minister of Emergencies after being dismissed for the management of Nadana, but also the person who favored its sale, who was Minister of Education in 2013, when it was sold to the private company of the university, is the current mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, who is also a professor at UV. We can see in this list of professors many people linked to the party and others not so much, because the university has truly had exponential growth and is currently a machine for dispensing master's degrees and a machine for dispensing degrees, especially in the Latin American market. The only positive thing about this for the public sector, let's say, is that 30% continues to belong to the Generalitat, so when it distributes dividends, for example, in 2024, the Generalitat received 1.3 million euros. Sergi Pitar, colleague. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Juan Lu. Let's pause now on that other aspect of the phenomenon, which is the multiplication of non-face-to-face universities. Since 2008, seven private online universities have opened. One of the most recent is the Mediterranean Atlantic Technological University, better known as UTAMED, which has been operating in Andalusia since this academic year. I've asked my colleague Néstor Cenizo from eldiario.es Andalucía to remind us who the promoter of this project is, Paco Ávila, and how UTAMED was conceived because it has a controversial history behind it. Hello, Juan Lu, how are you? Paco Ávila, to give you an idea, fits that prototype of an entrepreneur who sometimes borders on parody, right? He has his own website where he posts his biography, articles he publishes, [music] his own philosophy, which he calls the philosophy of stumbling, on which he relies to give advice, right? His speeches and what he writes in the national press, where he usually emphasizes entrepreneurship in contrast to state bureaucracy, right? He defines himself as a liberal person who believes that the best way to generate wealth is individualism. This is Paco Ávila, and he is the businessman behind UTM, of which he is the owner along with the Vocento group and Unicaja. UTM has started to teach classes this academic year, but the project, as you said, dates back years and has been controversial from the beginning. In 2023, the ministry and the rectors advised against approving it because they had doubts about its viability, its guarantees, and its academic plans, and they issued three negative reports. But the Junta de Andalucía, which is the competent authority, ignored them and authorized it to begin its activity this academic year. The negative reports also focused on the relationship of the project and Paco Ávila with Javier Imbroda, the Minister of Education of the Junta de Andalucía who passed away 4 years ago, the former basketball coach. Imbroda and Ávila founded MEDAC together in 2010, which is a private vocational training center, and Medac was the entity with which the initial UTAM project was presented. Imbroda did not abstain from approving Utamer despite his former partner championing it. He said he had disassociated himself from Medac before being appointed minister and had sold his shares. And well, there's another curious fact to finish, because Utamed is the first Andalusian online university, but it's not Ávila's first contact with the university world because in 2018 he already managed to get approval for a similar project in Melilla, and Melilla is a city that was governed then, and now, by Juan José Imbroda, who is Javier Imbroda's brother. [music] Dani, I'm back with you. Let's talk about the other side of this business, about what it costs a person, a student, a family to pursue a degree in one of these universities each year, because I understand that to enter one of these universities, the only requirement is to pay. Basically, yes, there are some universities that for some highly demanded degrees may have some kind of selective test, but well, yes, basically you get in by paying. The prices? Well, in a private, unregulated market, the range is very wide. If you enroll at IE, it can cost you €34,000 for one year of practically any degree, for example, architecture, which means you're looking at €140,000 to get your degree. Medicine at the University of Navarra, which we mentioned earlier, which is very prestigious, costs €20,000. This is quite standard in almost all universities, around €20,000 annually. Here, we are talking again about you looking at €100,000 to get your bachelor's degree. To compare with IE, the University of Navarra, €17,000 for architecture, which is half. In the CEUs, which are somewhat more popular, for example, you can study nursing, physiotherapy, or computer science for only €9,000 or €10,000 per year. We are always talking about a year. History and humanities are a bit cheaper. At CEU, you have €7,500. At UCAM of Murcia, which we mentioned earlier, a bit cheaper, you can study early childhood education for around €5,000. Medicine here is a bit less, €14,000-€15,000, more or less. Then there are the distance universities, which are another matter, obviously they are cheaper. There you find things from maybe €3,000, €3,500. What is happening with this is that this surge in private universities is causing the student loan market to increase significantly, which has risen by about 60% in 5 years. One out of every seven loans requested in Spain is now to pay for studies. So, we are tending a bit towards a US-like model where you graduate with tens of thousands of euros in debt before you even start working. Dani, we're finishing. How would you say we've arrived here? What has been the breeding ground for this parallel university ecosystem to grow so much, for this large market niche to open up? Well, in recent years, a kind of perfect storm has been generated with several fronts. On the one hand, the supply of public places has been stagnant. For at least 10 years, there haven't been more places. Then we would have to look by degree, but in general, the public university as a whole is not offering more places. Added to this is a demand that has grown enormously for studies. On the one hand, due to the labor market itself, which demands that you be trained, demands that you have degrees, demands that you specialize and differentiate yourself from others. And on the other hand, due to the Bologna Process, this is from some years ago, but Bologna imposed the obligation that for certain professions [music] you need to have completed a master's degree. This is the case with education, with law, with many other fields, but the public supply does not cover the need to pursue these master's degrees. There are not enough places for everyone. So, it is evident that where there is a market niche, where there is a need for a service, the private sector always appears to fill it, given the lack of, let's call it, interest from the public administration in offering these places. Daniel Sánchez Caballero, colleague, thank you very much. Thank you. This is Un tema al día, the podcast of eldiario.es. If you like what we do, we need your support. Become a member, become a member at eldiario.es/unsocio al día. This podcast is produced by Carmen Ibáñez, Marcos García Antonja, Lucía Martínez, and Izascun Pérez. The editing is by Pedro Nogales. I am Juan Lu Sánchez. Tomorrow, another topic. No.