From March 2016, more than 170 000 of Chile’s low-income students will be able to attend university for free for the first time since the higher education system was privatised 35 years ago. The bill guaranteeing free higher education to students who come from 50% of Chile’s most vulnerable families was passed by the Parliament on 23 December by a vote of 92 to 2. Free higher education was one of the campaign promises of President Michelle Bachelet, who was re-elected for her second term in 2013 (see ACA Newsletter - Education Europe, The existing Chilean higher education system is a legacy of Augusto Pinochet’s neoliberal reforms introduced in the 1980s, which included the creation of a system of private universities and the decrease of public funding for public universities. Today, the system is one of the most expensive in the world in terms of the share of higher education costs paid by students and their families.