The rector of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), Mateo Aquino Febrillet says that this institution does not waste money as if it were a “bottomless pit” and invited anyone who has made this type of accusation to investigate how the other 45 universities use their money and compare the number of employees, professors and students at the state university.
When interviewed by Dialogo Libre journalists, he said that this description was unfair because the first university in the Americas has half of the university students in the country, or 180,000, with one rector, four vice rector and nine deans.
In the meantime, in order to take care of 35,000 students the other universities have 45 rectors, and in the case where each university would operate with three deans that would total 135, in total. “Then, why do they accuse the UASD of being a ‘bottomless pit?’ They are just trying to justify themselves. It is as if we were an institution that wasted money and this has nothing to do with this,” he said. He recalled that this year the university received less than 2% of the GDP, RD$5.2 billion, and from registration fees for the semester, some RD$30 million. Next semester they will receive RD$100 million. “Now I don’t know how much the rest of the system receives, because we are transparent, the rest of the system does not say. In order to understand the other part of the system you have to know how much the 45 institutions of higher learning receive, then we would compare the income of each one: the total income, that of the family; of the company of the government,” he said.
He criticized the fact that although the UASD has half of the nation’s higher education students it barely has 25% of the professors of the system, who earn low salaries. He said that in order for the professors to have incomes that are more or less adequate, they have to work for up to 40 credit hours or more.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2012/10/29/i357560_niega-que-uasd-sea-barril-sin-fondo.html