Políticas de financiamiento y su rol en la intensificación de la competencia universitaria en Chile

This study analyses how funding policies have reshaped competition among Chilean universities from the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s to the introduction of new regulatory policies in 2018. Specifically, it examines the impact of two key instruments: free university education and funding based on institutional performance. Using a qualitative design relying on documentary analysis and interviews at three representative universities of the Chilean system of greater complexity (state, traditional private, and non-traditional private), the effects on university governance, institutional management, and academic work are analysed. The results show that free tuition has displaced undergraduate competition from economic criteria towards factors of institutional quality and academic prestige. This has benefited those universities that are part of the system and has generated pressure to adapt in those that are not. At the same time, performance-based funding has significantly increased inter- and intra-institutional competition, leading to academic segmentation according to research productivity criteria. Although these policies have promoted improvements in strategic planning and professionalised management, they have also increased administrative bureaucratisation, reduced institutional autonomy, and deepened precarious working conditions for certain groups of academics, especially those focused on teaching. Finally, the study concludes by highlighting the urgent need to move towards a balanced model of university funding that combines incentives for institutional excellence with effective mechanisms to reduce institutional inequality and protect the stability and quality of jobs of university faculty.