Tuition fees in Spain correspond to the amount of money that a student must pay in order to pursue higher education studies in Spain. Although they are generally associated with the cost of matriculation (matriculation fees), they may also include other payments, such as enrollment in assessment tests or the issuance of official academic and administrative documents. In the case of fees at public universities, these are called "academic public prices". In turn, private universities can adjust their own prices because they have a financing system that is independent from the government, resulting in substantially higher tuition fees.
Overview In Spain, public universities fees are established annually by laws enacted by the governments of each autonomous community, following a series of basic criteria dictated by the central government and published in the Official State Gazette (Spanish: Boletín Oficial del Estado, BOE). This means that fees can vary widely depending on the community in question. For example, for the 2021–2022 academic year, the highest were in the Community of Madrid and Catalonia, with an average price per credit at €23.4 and €23.1 respectively; while the lowest were in Galicia, with €11.9 per credit. The average price in Spain for a full matriculation bachelor's degree for the year 2022 is 1,044 euros.
Proportionally, most of the cost of studies at public universities in Spain is borne by the state, with the student contributing approximately 25% of the total cost, a figure that varies from one autonomous community to another. However, this payment can reach up to 100% of the actual cost when it comes to foreign students without the status of residents, excluding those from member states of the European Union.
Within the public university sector, the only fees set directly by the central government through the BOE and not by the autonomous communities are those of the National University of Distance Education (Spanish: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED).
Those students who receive a general scholarship from the Spanish state are exempt from payment. In recent decades, approximately 20 to 30% of students at public universities in Spain receive a scholarship of this type linked to an economic attribution, but which includes, in any case, exemption from matriculation fees. The number of people receiving this aid is substantially lower when it comes to master's degree students. About half of all bachelor's degree students receive it in some year of their studies.
History
Middle ages
The first academic institutions to appear on the peninsula in the Middle Ages were the Islamic schools, whose main representative was the Madrasa of Granada. The first catholic institutions founded in the Spain of the reconquest would emerge later on, such as the University of Palencia and the University of Salamanca.
Establishing what was the payment regime for the student in the Islamic madrasahs is complex because of the scarcity of detailed data. The educational institutions of Al-Andalus lacked centralization, and their economic management was probably independent, but it is plausible that these were free admission or, in any case, individualized.
As for the Catholic centers, the predominant hypothesis describes a university education most probably free of charge, following the tradition of the cathedral and monastic schools that strongly defended the idea that knowledge "is a gift of God and therefore should not be sold". Demanding money for education could therefore be considered simony, which forced the institutions to look for other ways of financing. In their beginnings, the universities of royal foundation received it, in great part, from the king himself, who even donated properties or buildings of the crown. Later, due to the insufficient and irregular distribution of these endowments, ecclesiastical support was required, which was requested through a petition to the pope by the king or the university itself. Likewise, some received financing from the public treasury of the city in which they were located, as in the case of the University of Lleida.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the precursors of fees as they are conceived today began to be introduced: payments for matriculation fees and the granting of degrees. However, these were probably very low in amount, and at no time were they of sufficient importance to solve the frequent financial problems of the institutions of the time.
Early modern age Texts describing the finances and different economic structures of university institutions in the early modern age are scarce and vary significantly depending on the center in question. Out of these, the most detailed information is the one that describes the economic situation of the universities of Salamanca, Valladolid and Alcalá.
Revenues of the universities of the time are closely linked to the production surpluses of the agrarian environment in which they are located, and they were often financed through the ecclesiastical tithe of their dioceses. By mid-16th century, the income derived from this tax generally represented an amount somewhat higher than 90% of university income, a percentage that would remain between 70% and 90% until the 18th century. The equivalent of the concept of "tax", as it is conceived today, is reflected as "payments for secretarial fees, matriculation and degrees", but this represents a very small percentage of total income in modern times: for example, this was 1.9% for the University of Valladolid in the years 1770–1779, and never exceeded 1.8% of the overall totals for the University of Salamanca between the 16th and 18th centuries.
It was not until 1845 when, through the implementation of the Pidal Plan, precursor of the Moyano Law, an attempt was made to give more prominence to tuition fees in the finances of these institutions.
Mid-19th century to the Franco regime
The Law of Public Instruction of September 9, 1857, also popularly known as the "Moyano Law", distinguished three types of fees: enrollment fees, required of students in the different educational centers; fees for degrees and titles, represented by payments to be made for obtaining academic degrees and titles in higher and professional careers; and professional certificates that fulfilled the function of qualifying for professional practice. In addition, there were payments for "examination fees", established by this law in the amount of 20 reales and destined to a greater extent to pay the salaries of the professors. The specific prices to be paid were stipulated in the section " matriculation fees, degrees, diplomas and professional certificates" located at the end of the publication.
The amount to be paid to obtain academic degrees was a significantly high expense for the average salary of the time: for example, it was 5,000 reales for the degree of licenciado or doctor. An analysis of the Moyano Law states that the fees at the time were "really high, to the extent that they practically covered the [total] cost of education to the State".
The year 1900 saw the introduction of fees for practical subjects, which consisted of academic fees aimed at defraying the cost of teaching these types of classes, which required smaller attendance groups and were therefore more costly for the institutions.
Tuition fees during the Franco regime
Spanish University Organization Act In 1943, the Ministry of National Education drafted the Spanish University Organization Act of July 29, which would regulate the existence of "a system of fees of different types, in relation to the economic possibilities of the student". This subject was addressed in Article 36, which established the creation of the School Protection Service, a body in charge of, among other things, "Fixing the school fees to be paid by each student". In addition, later, in article 86, "the general fees, which shall be reduced or even abolished, taking into account the intellectual and moral endowments of the pupils and the duly accredited financial means of their parents".
In theory, the fee payment system was individualized, but its concrete definition was in a certain legal limbo. This was largely decided by the rector, a figure appointed unilaterally by the government, which implied the existence of a certain variability in the price of matriculation at each Spanish university. A Bill issued by the Ministry in 1944 declared the matriculation fee to be 60 pesetas for each subject; and from 75 to 150 pesetas for the payment of the internship fee, which varied according to the course of study. In addition, free matriculation was guaranteed to students who, for economic reasons, needed it, but this was limited to 10% of the total number of students enrolled.
As a reference, according to the official budgets of the University of Madrid, in 1945, it earned a total of 3,164,500 pesetas. Considering that the number of students enrolled in that university for that year was around 6000–7000, we can establish that each one of them paid between 500 and 700 pesetas on average for a complete course, an amount that varied according to the degree course taken and according to the amount of aid they received if they were eligible for that option.
In 1959, Decree 639/1959 of September 26, on the validation of the fee for the issuance of academic, teaching and professional degrees, certifications and diplomas, was issued. The signing of this decree highlights the fall of the academic fees in the legal limbo mentioned above and the existence of a parafiscality of the same. The decree not only fails to solve these problems, but also leads to a general increase in the amount of these fees.
1970 General Education Act Subsequently, in 1970, the last educational reform law of the Franco dictatorship was passed: the General Education Act. Article 7.1 of this law specified restrictions on the cost of tuition fees:
This did not have an immediate repercussion on the fees, which remained stable between 1964 and 1976. It was in the latter when Decree 1888/1976, of July 30, 1976, was enacted, designed for the 1976–1977 academic year. The approval of the decree meant, in practice, an increase of approximately 300% in the average matriculation fee.
1983-2001
In 1983, the Organic Law 11/1983, of August 25, 1983 on University Reform (Spanish: Ley de Reforma Universitaria, LRU) was passed.
According to this law, public universities would be governed by a new legal-administrative system. Under the LRU, it would be established that public prices for studies involving the issuance of official degrees were to be set by the general state administration, within the limits established by the Council of Universities. This regime of public prices established by the State would only be applied in the so-called "Autonomous Communities of MEC territory", composed of Aragón, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castile and León, Extremadura, Madrid, Murcia and La Rioja. The rest of the communities had already assumed powers in higher education, which allowed them to modify public prices.
Subsequently, Law 8/1989, of April 13, 1989, on Public Fees and Prices, which grants the status of "public prices" to matriculation fees, states that these must be set by Ministerial Order. It also introduced the distinction between "experimental" (which included most of the science degrees) and "non-experimental" (to which the rest belonged), which would be maintained until the 1991–1992 academic year.
In 1992, under the so-called "Model 92", the model of classification of studies between experimental and non-experimental studies was expanded to distinguish up to seven degrees of experimentality according to the branch of knowledge to which they belonged. This would also affect the amount to be paid according to each degree.