• GABRIELA GALARZA

    @ggsueiro

    Madrid

  • OLGA R. SANMARTIN

    @olgarsanmartin

    Madrid

Updated Tuesday,6June2023-01:04

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The Selectivity has become a fierce competition between students from different autonomous communities. The cut-off marks are getting higher and nerves are soaring among families because their children do not reach 12 or 13 out of 14, practically perfect grades that open the doors to a secure job in Medicine, Mathematics or engineering.

Translation, Audiovisual Communication, Psychology, Early Childhood Education and Journalism are, according to the Isea k Foundation, the degrees most likely to lead to temporary or low-paid jobs, but, even so, they are around 12, a grade also required for Physiotherapy, although the market is saturated and its graduates have to leave Spain to find work. Even Criminology, which leads the black list of graduates in jobs below their qualification, had this course a cut-off grade of 12.5 at the University of Alcalá de Henares. What causes these high grades?

First, "the demand to enter university has increased by 26% between the 2019/2020 academic year and 2022/23," explains Ismael Sanz, professor of Applied Economics at the Rey Juan Carlos University and visiting researcher at the London School of Economics. According to data from the Ministry of Universities, pre-registered students in first option have gone from 389,652 registered just before the Covid pandemic to 491,931 this course. At the same time, adds Sanz, "the supply of places has decreased by 0.6% in these same years": from 245,513 to 244,008, which means 1,505 fewer places.

"The demand has increased due to the increase in the number of high school students and those who do the Selectivity due to the increase in the birth rate that occurred in Spain between 1995 and 2008," in the midst of the immigration boom, continues Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, professor of Modern History at the Autonomous University of Madrid and coordinator of the working groups to harmonize the Selectivity created between 2009 and 2021.

Why don't universities make more places available? The process of expanding places is slow and must be approved between the Government and the autonomous communities. Universities can propose it by renewing the accreditation of each degree before the quality agencies, but this modification has to be ratified by the Sectoral Conference. "If places are expanded, it costs money: it would mean more teachers and facilities. It's an economic and political issue," De Carlos replies.

Ismael Sanz points out that "universities are not always interested in increasing places", because, although they are financed by the number of students who study their degrees, it is also important for them to have a good reputation, and that is something that is seen if there are high cut notes.

In the following tables you can consult the cut-off marks for each of the degrees and double degrees taught in Spain. Although the data are not definitive, but indicative, since the cut-off grade is set with the lowest grade obtained by the last student to access a certain career. This each year and in certain degrees the margin can be wider than in others, allows students to get an approximate idea of the minimum required to study the different degrees or double degrees in the different Spanish universities.

What has happened in recent years is that private universities have eaten ground to public ones, attracting a good part of those students of 12 or 11 who were left out of the most demanded careers. At the same time, in the public ones, double degrees or degrees in English have been created, in groups of very few students and with a lot of quality, and the cut-off grades have skyrocketed because all the students want to be in them. This is the case of the double degrees of Mathematics and Physics (13.83 at the Complutense), Computer Science and Mathematics (13.65) or Translation and Interpretation of French and International Relations (13.64 at Pablo Olavide). These elite groups on public campuses have acquired very good reputations and are highly regarded by employers.

The second reason that explains these high grades is the inflation of grades that has occurred in Baccalaureate, which counts 60% in access to university (the other 40% is the test itself). Students with outstanding in high school have gone from representing 18% before the pandemic to 25% in 2021. This year they have fallen (to 23.7%), but teachers recognize that they are more "understanding" than before in their evaluations, partly because of the difficulties of Covid, partly because of the messages of laxity transmitted by the Government and partly because, for the first time, it is allowed to present themselves to the Selectivity with a fail.

Teachers are not insensitive to the situation of their most studious students, who risk their future for a few tenths in careers with a lot of competitiveness. The problem is that there are very few places and very different criteria to reach them. In private and subsidized schools, the final grades of Baccalaureate and Ebau are higher than in public institutes, according to the analysis of recent years. The Baccalaureate grade is usually one point more generous than the grade achieved in Selectivity.

"There is an increase in grades of the subjects examined in the Selectivity, with high percentages of suitable in traditionally hard subjects, especially Science. In certain Autonomous Communities, the number of outstanding is surprising, "says De Carlos, who recalls that this inflation has been occurring for years: the percentage of passes in Selectivity was 84% in 2008 and has been rising year by year to exceed 95%.

But there is a more recent reason, which is the step, during Covid, to an Ebau format with "a more flexible structure and with more options that always allows you to obtain better grades," says Sonia Madrid, vice-rector for Studies at the University of Murcia. This system, "designed for students who had not followed the ordinary course normally", is maintained today, although there is no longer a pandemic. "This model continues to be applied by order of the Ministry since 2020 knowing that it was going to change to an Ebau model of Lomloe," explains Madrid, who believes that "drastically changing the exam model from one course to another penalizes future students, and that is why it is so important to minimize these changes and promote them gradually. " The vice-rector reproaches the Government for not having counted on the universities when undertaking its reforms and emphasizes that "it is in the hands of the Ministry to ensure the least possible impact on students."

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