Cuba’s Education in Crisis: Closures at the University of Havana

Editor’s Note: The following article was written by Fabiana Barrientos, one of the Tribuno’s summer interns. 

Following Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the Cuban embargo enacted under the Eisenhower administration has reached unprecedented levels of restrictions. The embargo has been intensified by a de facto “fuel blockade” that places tariffs and other restrictions on foreign companies that sell oil and petroleum to the Cuban government, as well as re-designating the country as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.  

Beyond daily, island-wide power blackouts and escalating poverty, an alarming and equally devastating element of the blockade is the effect it has had on the Cuban education system. 

After the overthrow of the Batista government by Fidel Castro and other members of the 26th of July Movement on January 1, 1959, education became a cornerstone of the revolutionary project. It was during this time that the University of Havana made higher education free and accessible to students across Latin America and around the world. At the peak of its enrollment, the University of Havana educated tens of thousands of students across sixteen faculties and numerous research centers, earning a reputation as Cuba’s premier institution of higher learning. Over the last 60 years, Cuba has educated over 100,000 doctors, and the country’s medical education system has earned international recognition; Cuban universities have graduated more doctors than any other higher education system in Latin America. 

However, the intensified fuel blockade has made this vision of socialized education increasingly difficult to sustain. Amalia, a final-year student and lead organizer of the Federation of Students at the University of Havana, spoke with us about the challenges faced by university attendees. She explains that the main university campus was closed down in February, and students have been instructed to take classes online. Yet as the blackouts increase in scope and duration, online classes have become impossible to sustain, especially for rural students who lack the infrastructure to use additional modes of electricity, such as generators. 

Amalia explains that, as of late, the power in her district has been on for about two hours a day. She notes that during this timeframe, she must finish any essential tasks that require electricity—such as washing clothes and dishes—in addition to her schoolwork. However, she explains that simply because the power is on, students may not be able to connect to the internet. “Access to both the internet and power must line up perfectly to complete school tasks,” she says. Amalia warns that the ongoing disruptions threaten to create a generation of students unable to fully access the education to which they are entitled. 

Etienne is an American exchange student who did a semester at the University of Havana before its closure in February of this year. He explains that the university simply did not have the necessary infrastructure to maintain daily operations: “The bathrooms are overflowing,” he states, “they do not function, and it’s to the point where only once in a while is there a worker willing to go in and take a bucket to refill the toilets by hand and drain the urine.” 

Amalia, who is finishing her thesis on the role of revolutionary Che Guevara, says she maintains hope: “This is the only world I have known,” she says, referring to the decades-long blockade, “but we have always found a way to adapt. I know this is not the end of the University. We should not have to acquiesce to the desires of a foreign power to continue to access our education.” 

Etienne agrees with the sentiment, adding “the University of Havana has existed for centuries, and for it to fall apart because of the cruelty of the American government is almost inconceivable.” He adds, “The months I spent at the university taught me so much about Cuba and the resilience of the Cuban people, who ultimately end up bearing the brunt of decisions made by politicians sitting in a room somewhere in Washington.” 

Hence, while poverty, disease, and discontent skyrocket on the island, the generational cost of the blockade is made manifest in the inhumanity of the attack on education, where the consequences stretch beyond Cuba’s borders to the communities around the world that have long depended on Cuban-trained doctors and teachers. Alarmingly, an entire generation of young Cubans risks becoming the first in decades for whom the promise of free, universal education is nothing but a memory.

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