The challenges to create and support a regional university: past and present of the Universidad Austral de Chile

Abstract

This essay discusses how the acknowledgment of the preferential role of the State in educational matters, was decisive for creating the Universidad Austral de Chile in 1954. It shows as well how the political dispute related to the public education, the free access and State's role in the universities financial support, are issues debated then and solved convincingly, which allows the strengthening of Universidad Austral in southern Chile due its historic alliance with the State.