Former president Rodrigo Chaves, who now serves as minister of the Presidency and of Finance, called Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) rector María Estrada a terrorist after she warned that a budget cut could force the immediate closure of the institute’s Limón campus, where 417 students are enrolled.
Chaves made the remark on the program No Mientas Show and, when asked, confirmed that he was referring to Estrada. He accused the rector of holding the Limón campus hostage over a reduction he put at roughly 0.4% of the institute’s budget. He also said university authorities were unwilling to give up their privileges.
The Limón Academic Center offers degrees in business administration, computer engineering and industrial production engineering. Estrada has said the campus would have to close at once if a ₡491 million ($1.08 million) reduction in the second extraordinary budget for 2026 takes effect.
Jorge Herrera, president of the National Council of Rectors (Conare), has linked the funds at stake to Law 9635, the 2018 public finance law that helps finance the universities’ regional campuses. Those campuses allow students outside the Central Valley to earn a degree without moving away from home.
The remark escalates a dispute that has been building for weeks. Earlier this month, Education Minister Leonardo Sánchez accused Estrada of political extortion over the same closure warning and pointed to a TEC surplus of more than ₡20 billion ($43.9 million). Estrada has said the law does not allow those funds to be used for the campus’s operating costs.
TEC said on Oct. 15 that it had not received that month’s funding transfer and had used its own resources to pay salaries and scholarships. The institute asked the Finance Ministry, the Presidency and the Legislative Assembly to reject the cut.
TEC’s communications department said the rector had not yet seen Chaves’s comments and would not respond for now. María José Zamora, president of the TEC student federation, rejected the label. She said Estrada was defending a regional campus and has faced attacks because she is a woman.
The Limón dispute sits inside a broader fight over public university funding. Late on Oct. 20, the legislative budget committee approved an ₡8.05 billion ($17.7 million) reduction to deferred funds owed to the public universities in the 2027 budget, through a motion filed by the ruling Pueblo Soberano party (PPSO). About ₡1.9 billion ($4.17 million) of that amount corresponds to TEC.
The cuts drew thousands of students and staff into the streets of San José on Oct. 20, in a march led by the rectors of all five public universities. They come as the government faces a widening revenue shortfall that has also squeezed the courts, police and schools. The full Legislative Assembly must vote on the 2027 budget before the end of November, while the second extraordinary budget for 2026 remains under debate. Those two votes will determine whether the Limón campus keeps its doors open.
