UNR added 25 percent more entrants compared to the previous year. In 2024, 25.808 students enrolled in undergraduate courses, about five thousand more than the previous year. Never before in UNR history has there been such a significant jump from one year to the next. Of those, 4 thousand opted for new paths such as Tourism, Design, Brokerage, Artificial Intelligence and Citizen Security.
The commitment to shorter courses, routes shared by several faculties and curricular designs demanded by students and work needs, was reflected in an exponential growth in the enrollment of those enrolled in courses at the university. Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) which in 2024 added 25 percent more entrants than the previous year.
The numbers show that in 2023 there were a total of 20.667 people who signed up to start their university studies, of which 3.348 students opted for new careers such as Tourism, Industrial Design, Cultural Management, Artificial Intelligence, Graphic Design, Clothing Design, Brokerage Real Estate, and Citizen Security. Already in 2024, this figure increased significantly, adding 25.808 registered for all races, with 3912 choosing one of the new routes. If the statistics are extended back in time, it is seen that from 2012 to 2023 the number of entrants increased by 40 percent.
The number of pre-registered students for 2024 supports the challenge that it was for the UNR to invest in the implementation of these careers, with all that it means to undertake the construction of study plans, to cover the requirements of the field of science and production, to include new technologies, and to guarantee effective compliance, which implies receiving more students for whom more teachers, more classrooms, more buildings are needed. The new academic paths also have in common that the duration is four years, a significant fact when choosing a university degree.
“Never before has our University had such a strong increase in its enrollment from one year to the next as now. And the decisive element to bring about this was having decided to multiply the training proposal, adding innovative, shorter routes in line with the expectations of today's young people and the needs imposed by the world we live in. Having added tourism, design, artificial intelligence, security and brokerage has allowed hundreds of young people to find professional training paths at the University in areas that were not traditionally contemplated in our proposal,” said Bartolacci to explain the phenomenon. Additionally, he pointed out that “a context of crisis as we are going through, will surely also influence the progression of students who choose to opt for the Public University to continue their studies.”
“For us it is great news and confirms that the work that this objective demands is worth it. The launch of each of these courses involved an enormous effort by the University and seeing that this effort results in thousands of young people who are taking them today, in such a significant increase in enrollment, is very comforting,” said the Rector. “We had to guarantee teaching positions, resolve and project infrastructure and we did not receive an additional or specific budget to do so, but we did so by optimizing our resources, devising responses, making every effort so that the need to launch a new career could become a reality. Something that allowed us to meet this goal was to think of these new careers no longer as particular paths built from one Faculty but rather in collaborative alliances between different Faculties, which not only guarantees better use of resources, but also builds more comprehensive curricular approaches, unavoidable in the world in which we live, because no phenomenon can be explained from a single discipline. Furthermore, to create these paths we listened to the voices that needed to be heard, we called on institutions, the productive sector, the State and civil society to help us diagnose well what was needed, something that did not always happen in the academic field. , because most of the time the traditional proposal was preserved or a new race was launched without having much record of the needs of the region. I think this is a healthy sign, a very important paradigm shift in our institution that we must sustain,” he indicated.
“Without a doubt, a distinctive feature of recent years is the multiplication of the academic training proposal at all levels, particularly at the intermediate level and in bachelor's degrees. In these 4 years the growth was unprecedented, and the challenge is to continue on this path, even in the difficult conditions we are going through, because the statistics are very clear and show that this is what we must do. When we say that in a world that changes rapidly, the University must also think about what things it must transform or do to be in tune with that agenda, we are referring to this, among other challenges. And for this reason we ask so strongly for recognition of the need to reasonably increase the budget that the national State assigns to us. For this strategic role that higher education has. Being able to say that thousands of young people join with their expectations and dreams to train at a public university is wonderful, but that must be accompanied with investment that allows us to guarantee that we can do all of this well,” Bartolacci highlighted.
One of the explanations for this increase in students was the boom that represented the incorporation of the Graphic Design and Clothing Design majors, which will now begin their second year in 2024. In its initial cohort, in 2023, between the two there were 2.275 students, while this year there are 1670 who begin this academic journey. While Graphic Design is taught in the Faculty of Architecture, Clothing Design is housed in the classrooms of the Faculty of Humanities, although both have content shared by the two Faculties. They are training courses that previously could only be studied in the private circuit and that were added to the free degree offer of the UNR. They are bets that are also linked to the productive and industrial development of the region.
And this year, 2024, two other new races begin to roll out that were highly in demand, such as Citizen Security, with 485 registered, and Real Estate Brokerage, with 408 registered. The first will last four years and will combine a virtual and in-person course modality based in the faculties of Political Science and Law. It is the first undergraduate degree in the entire history of UNR that stipulates hybridity in its curriculum.
In the case of Brokerage, UNR has become the first Public University in the country to open a free academic degree offer in this subject, with a study plan created in conjunction with the College of Real Estate Brokers of Rosario (Cocir), with a flexible curricular format that translates into the four-monthly delivery of subjects, with a strong component of professional practice. Within the framework of the current trend of shorter journeys, the extension will be four years.
The University Technician in Artificial Intelligence lasts two and a half years with internships at the Rosario Technological Pole and software companies in the region. It began in 2022 with 247 registered, continued in 2023 with 332, and in 2024 there are 601 registered, being the program with the most entrants in the Faculty of Engineering. The proposal is attractive because it is short and has a mixed course, some days in person at the Pellegrini building at 250 and other days virtually, but above all because it is a degree that is well in tune with what the world and the development of technologies is needing.
The Bachelor of Tourism was the one that kicked off, the one that broke the mold and made its way among the traditional careers of the UNR, the one that for the first time combined the joint management of two academic units, based on Economic Sciences and on Politic science. In 2023 there were 436 entrants and this year there are 562. The original planning was bearing fruit and today professionals with skills to perform in two large areas are already received: tourism as an economic activity; and as a matter of public policy.
Shorter races
In June of last year, the UNR Superior Council approved regulations to make undergraduate courses shorter and promote the modernization of study programs, with the aim of adapting UNR to constantly changing global contexts.
The minimum number of hours required by the national system or the respective accreditation bodies will be taken by the Universidad Nacional de Rosario as the maximum possible amount. In this way, UNR is the first Public University to carry out this transformation in academic training paths. Thus, in the new careers, the total workload of the study plan will not exceed the minimum established by national regulations or by the standards defined by national or regional accreditation institutions.
Journalist: Micaela Pereyra / Photographer: Camila Casero, Karen Roeschlin