TENS of thousands of Argentinians flooded the streets of major cities nationwide on Tuesday to protest against funding cuts to public universities.

Vast crowds in downtown Buenos Aires marched toward the government’s headquarters to denounce budget shortfalls which they say are eroding the financial foundation of the country’s higher education system.

Argentina’s public university system, which has produced five Nobel Prize laureates, is highly regarded having been tuition-free since 1949.

Congress passed a law last year to fund universities’ operational costs and raise teacher salaries in line with high inflation, but Javier Milei’s far-right government has tied up the legislation with court challenges.

Like his ally United States President Donald Trump, Mr Milei routinely attacks university campuses as bastions of “woke” indoctrination.

He has slashed public education funding in a sharp break from what he describes as decades of reckless spending that spawned corruption under his predecessors.

Tuesday’s protest gathered people of all ages and political persuasions, as Mr Milei faces declining approval ratings over slumping economic activity, plummeting wages and soaring unemployment.

The president’s undersecretary for university policies, Alejandro Alvarez, blasted Tuesday’s march as “completely political” and said the government had compensated universities for higher operating costs.

Unions have rejected the small increases as insufficient.

In seeking to annul the legislation, Mr Milei’s administration argues that it fails to specify how the state will supply the mandatory funding increases in a time of harsh fiscal austerity.

The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court. Student protesters called on judges to “listen to the outcry throughout the country’s public squares” on Tuesday.

University professors’ pay cheques have declined by roughly 33 per cent, after accounting for high inflation, since Mr Milei took power in late 2023, according to the main teachers’ federation.

Annual inflation in Argentina consistently runs above 30 per cent.

The rector of the prestigious University of Buenos Aires, Ricardo Gelpi, said steep losses in purchasing power have driven at least 580 research professors in the engineering and science departments to ditch the public system for private universities or other better-paying jobs.

“It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” said Sol Muniz, a law student at the University of Buenos Aires at the march. “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.”