Educator Maria Sixta Quispe is the first in her family to attend a university. Her mother, a Quechua speaker with studies up to second grade — forced to flee her village in the Apurímac highlands in the 1980s to avoid being kidnapped by terrorists or the military — always wanted for her third of five children what was denied to her. Architect Ángela Anchante, daughter of a military technician and a nursing technician, has worked all her life to acquire intellectual capital that would allow her to rise and care for the decaying huacas of her native Chincha.
Maria Sixta was admitted this year to the Autonomous University of Barcelona to study a research master’s in education, while Ángela Anchante was accepted to pursue a doctorate in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Both planned for years to build a solid profile to apply for the Bicentennial Scholarship — the most difficult from the Peruvian State —: diplomas from recognized institutions, teaching experience, work experience in the State, publications in indexed journals, a year of volunteering, and language proficiency, among other requirements.
Maria Sixta and Ángela Anchante are just two of the 350 young people admitted to the best universities in the world who are currently in limbo. Without any warning, the National Scholarship and Educational Credit Program (Pronabec), an institution attached to the Ministry of Education, suspended in 2026 the 150 places awarded each year by the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship. A program that covers all postgraduate expenses: studies, accommodation, tuition, and transportation.
In its twelve years of existence, the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship — formerly called the President of the Republic Scholarship — has awarded 2,785 scholarships, enabling social mobility for high-level professionals who, due to their limited resources, could not afford postgraduate studies abroad that in some cases approach $80,000 annually. Faced with Pronabec’s silence, the students organized: they raised their voices on social media, sent emails and letters to the competent authorities, investigated the budget’s destination, and contacted congress members.
Only after media pressure did Pronabec issue a statement announcing that the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship was undergoing a “reengineering” and that no new call was launched in order to “guarantee the financial sustainability” of current beneficiaries. The detail is that applicants have already incurred admission expenses, gathered documentation after cumbersome paperwork, but above all have invested years of academic preparation to meet the requirements.
“I gave my word. I committed, and now I have lost credibility with the University of Pennsylvania. They have responded with a thank you and to try again next time. It’s a shame, but that’s how the country behaves with education. It hurts,” says Ángela Anchante from California, where she is studying conservation. She studied with a scholarship for eleven years of school, plus a partial scholarship in undergraduate studies. Without funding, where would she be now?
Read more A well-managed migration is a driver of progress
Maria Sixta Quispe is disappointed to be adrift in uncertainty and to postpone a master’s degree with which she could support other people who, like her mother, have suffered exclusion for being Quechua speakers and not having finished school. “A world that does not handle your language is not your world. You are misunderstood. When I went to the hospital, my mother couldn’t even read the signs. That’s why the didactics of language in bilingual contexts matters so much to me. But now I don’t know. I have no way to pay for my studies abroad. They are taking the possibility out of our hands,” says this secondary school teacher from a school in Uripa, a locality in Apurímac, one of the poorest regions of Peru until a few years ago.
Midweek, Pronabec issued a statement assuring that the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship has not been canceled and confirmed that it will not exist this year due to a budget deficit. This was denied by some organizations such as the Center for the Analysis of Public Policies in Higher Education (CAPPES), who maintained that until February the budget was available and that it all boils down to a lack of political will.
The firm Apoyo Consultoría explains that this program has the real capacity to transform the lives of Peruvians and that it represents a much smaller investment compared to Congress, one of the most discredited institutions in the country. It points out that between 2021 and 2025, the five annual calls for this scholarship demanded a budget of 45 million soles (12.7 million dollars), three times less than the budget Congress assigns in a single year to the payroll bonuses item (schooling, bonuses, gratifications, productivity bonus, and economic growth bonus). “With that money, they could have financed 580 master’s degrees or more than 320 doctorates abroad,” they note.
Juan Montriuel Berrocal, who at 25 works as a data analyst at a bank, was admitted to the National University of Singapore a year ago, in April 2025. But he postponed his enrollment due to lack of funds. He managed everything to apply for the Bicentennial Generation Scholarship and start his studies in 2026. With the suspension, he is now considering going to a bank to get into debt to fulfill his goal. What irritates him most these days is the news that the Government signed a contract with the United States to acquire combat planes for 3.5 billion dollars. “What direct impact on the country’s development does buying planes have and not addressing a fundamental need like education?” he criticizes.
President José María Balcázar has declared that he is managing a supplementary credit before Congress to cover this type of financing. However, he has set the condition that beneficiaries return to Peru, as he has been informed that more than 90% of scholarship holders who go abroad do not return. Sociologist Nicole Enrico, who leads the student collective, disputes the president’s statement. “Pronabec’s own reports indicate that 75% of students do return. In any case, vacancies in the State and universities must be ensured to carry out our repayment. We do not want to be confrontational, but we need a solution,” she states. The Education Commission of Congress has summoned Minister María Cuadros for this Monday to respond to this crisis. Expectations are not high: Cuadros has missed two calls.