Although the difficulties are great, the founders, presidents, rectors and directors of Colombian higher education institutions (IES) do not give up in our efforts so that training continues to be a powerful instrument of social and labor transformation that enables life and the work of millions of compatriots and contributes to the construction of a future in peace, more dignified, viable and sustainable with productive intelligence of the Nation.

We must acknowledge it. We IES are not spared either from the difficult times our society is going through: The pandemic, economic restrictions, the complex environment of public order, unjustified accusations, polarization and the drop in student demand are putting students against the wall. a good number of institutions, especially private ones.

It is important to remember that in the country the State resources for higher education are invested, fundamentally, in contributions to public IES, while private ones, which also provide a public education service, must survive with tuition fees and some marginal income product of its management.

Although we have very lending and solid private universities, which make us proud of their tradition, capital, relationship and political-sector negotiation capacity, there are dozens (not to say that more than one hundred or one hundred and fifty) the EIS that were founded thanks to to the vocational commitment of patriarchs, academics, businessmen, religious communities, social leaders and visionaries, who dared – once all the quality and legal requirements were met – to open offices in municipalities and regions where there was no presence of education public superior, to develop programs that require a significant investment, and even operate at a loss in order to become known and provide a dignified academic service and social projection that would give the students who trusted them an opportunity. History records how many of these pioneers had to commit their own financial resources, mortgage properties, and borrow heavily to pay payroll and build buildings, while taking off.

Private higher education in Colombia is not, as some Olympians have wrongly asserted, a business. It is not for profit, and when license plates drop, your operation can be significantly affected. As contemplated in Law 30 of 1992 (art. 98), HEIs are not for profit. This situation, which for many is complex and difficult to understand, exalts the vocation and commitment of IES that for decades have hardly been able to survive with the enrollment income, which must be constantly managed to reach levels that allow the balance and sustainability that each semester guarantee their continuity and permanence in the regions where they are present.

It also dignifies even more the commitment and work of those who are behind these HEIs, the multiple investments that, via various standards of labor legislation, security, physical and technological infrastructure and academic quality (registration and accreditation), have had to be made gradually and incrementally in the last five years, to meet demanding conditions demanded by the State, in order to ensure the tranquility and proper training of our students.

Let me insist on these aspects, because the criticisms, messages on social networks, stigmatization and even announcements from some figures of public opinion are undeserved. These HEIs grew, on their own initiative, without government support, and with private resources, in the midst of adverse circumstances: They dared to invest in classrooms, human talent with highly specialized professionals and teachers, libraries, staffing and laboratories in municipalities where only you could get there on horseback or by boat; They gave the possibility of dreaming of a better future to hundreds of thousands of young people for whom it would be impossible, otherwise, to access a higher education program, despite the fact that environmental conditions and tuition fees are difficult for them. have made it possible to guarantee professors with doctorates, have highly ranked researchers, carry out international academic exchanges, implement state-of-the-art technology or achieve better performance in the Saber Pro tests regardless of the entry levels evidenced in the knowing 11 tests, among other requirements, which are not It can generalize, but they are conditions that a good number of peers, the Conaces and the CNA many times ask for in their processes, as if their backs were turned to the reality of a country that they do not seem to live or feel.

Destructive and non-formative thoughts

Because of all this, it hurts humanly, gives sadness and dismay when a count of recent years is made and it is found that a former President of the Republic, a former Minister of Education, a former Director of Planning and now an honorable Senator of the Republic, among others , stigmatize non-accredited HEIs identifying them as “garage universities”, not only ignoring the regulations of the sector, but also the dignity and sacrificed work of those who have given their lives for higher education.

As a citizen, academic, president of ACIET and rector, I cannot keep quiet and let go of the dangerous stigmatization that the Senator of the Republic, Doctor Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, without measuring the seriousness of his words, has done in the middle of the Congress of the Republic, by stating that «unaccredited HEIs offer a garbage education.» I can think that the senator is unaware that in Colombia all HEIs that offer academic programs have due legal recognition and meet the very demanding and adequate quality conditions to be able to serve; that high-quality accreditation, in addition to being a voluntary process, as its name implies, responds to a greater demand and that only about 20% of HEIs in the country have it, because it is temporary, because it is very expensive and because what demand is not always possible to meet by all HEIs, especially those that reach poor municipalities and distant regions of the country.

That Senator Lara attacks the Icetex model and gives arguments to defend the debtors of said entity, affects the good name, effort, commitment and image of hundreds of IES that do not have the prestige, recognition, superlative levels of quality, checkbook, relationship and tradition as those with which this legislator surely knows.

The country owes a debt of gratitude to these non-accredited private HEIs, because they have reached where many of the large ones have not chosen, because they have provided competitive education at low cost, because they have not closed the doors with classist admission processes, selective in Conditions of equality between unequal ones, because they have complemented the limited capacity of the State to attend to educational coverage, and because without them today we would not be thinking about a massification but rather an educational tragedy. Therefore, it is important to remember that each higher education student is a life project just like his family, which must be attended with dignity, quality and respect, and it is the private HEIs that today attend approximately 49% of the total of the student population of Colombia that the state does not reach; Of the 300 IES there are 69 high quality accredited of which 29 are public and 40 private. This is the reality.

I make a cordial invitation so that instead of sacrificing socially and politically to these HEIs, the country, the Executive with the Ministry of Education and Icetex, and the Legislative with the Congress, the assemblies and the councils, contribute to the Colombians, those served by these higher education institutions, have more and better conditions of educational credit, connectivity and promotion actions, among other aspects.

Sadly, we live in an unfortunate scenario of polarization, stigmatization and investment of values. Now it turns out that those who have given their lives for education pretend to be portrayed as «the bad guys in the movie.»

Prudence, for the love of God!