President Isabel Díaz Ayuso was frank in 2024: “We open Madrid to all university projects, from all corners of Spain, the world and especially Latin America, provided that they meet the requirements of quality and excellence.” There are already 14 private universities and three others under construction, compared to six public ones, and his executive has found a shortcut so that others can continue to be inaugurated without much paperwork, such as campuses attached to already existing universities. The latest example is the Alma Mater Higher Education Center – announced as UCAM-COE – recently inaugurated in Torrejón de Ardoz, although classes begin next September. Behind it is the Catholic University of San Antonio de Murcia (UCAM), of the religious movement of the Neocatechumens (better known as kikos) and the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE). This ends 13 years of fruitless pilgrimage through Alicante, León, Málaga and Alcorcón.
At the opening ceremony under a plastic tent, Alejandro Blanco, president of the COE, revealed – courtesy of Ayuso, present in the room – how the regional president encouraged them to avoid bureaucracy by opening an affiliated center, not a new university. This second option involves going through many other procedures, including the report of technicians from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (non-binding) and, since last October, that of the national evaluation agency (Aneca) or its regional delegations, which must be approved.
According to the COE president’s account, on December 5, 2021, he and UCAM founder José Luis Mendoza (his “brother”) visited Ayuso’s office, where the then Minister of Education, Enrique Ossorio, was also present. After listening to 25 minutes of Mendoza’s exhaustive explanation of the university project, Ayuso got to the heart of the matter. “At one point you looked at me and you said (to Mendoza), ‘We didn’t come here to waste time. What do you want to do? A university? We can build a university, but the time frame is very long. A branch center? Are we in agreement? We are in agreement’. Councilor, at five o’clock, call Mr. Mendoza and we will go,” Blanco continued. For 13 years, the COE has been offering at UCAM Murcia a program aimed at elite athletes – Saúl Craviotto, Carolina Marín or Mireia Belmonte – to combine their sporting and academic careers and the intention is to replicate the idea in Torrejón.
The central government has unwittingly opened up a new path of development for private universities with the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU, 2023). While the Organic Law of Universities (LOU, 2001) decreed that “affiliated centers must be established within the territorial framework of the corresponding autonomous community, or also have the approval of the one in which they are located”, LOSU does not require any authorization for affiliation with private universities. Yes in the case of the public. It is for this reason that the center of the Order of Illustrious Lawyers of Madrid, attached to Complutense, needed the approval of the Ayuso Government.
The ministry, which did not intend to grant facilities to private developers, sought to correct its “error” by modifying in 2025 the decree which governs the creation of universities. The project anticipated that centers affiliated with a university in another community would need a favorable report from the General Conference on University Policy – prepared by the ministry and ratified by regional advisors – and from the University Council. But the Council of State recommended in its opinion not to make this change, which contradicts LOSU, and the government gave in.
The center will offer five degrees – nursing, physical therapy, psychology, nutrition and dietetics and food science and technology – but the desired medicine should not be ruled out. Any university that aspires to offer it first implements health courses, and this appears in its project for Alcorcón. In Madrid, there are already more students enrolled in the first year of medicine in a private center than in a public center. If the Madrid Higher Education Law is approved as the project currently envisages, UCAM could offer up to 10 degrees in Madrid, no more, because the pressure from the rectors of public universities, who see how private universities are progressing while they bleed out without funding, has had an effect.
The beginnings of UCAM were controversial. The “decree of erection” was signed in 1996 by the Bishop of Cartagena, Javier Azagra, protected by the Agreements with the Vatican of 1979, which exempt the Church from the authorization of the Administration. But in reality, the layman Mendoza created the San Antonio Foundation, the seed of the university. The former missionary, who donated millions of dollars to the Vatican, died three years ago, 13 months after meeting Ayuso. At the event, a video supporting the Pope Francis Center was shown.
Controversy has been a constant in the progress of this expansion project. In 2013, Mendoza laid the first stone of a building in the municipality of San Juan, Alicante. It intended to become the fourth private university in the Valencian Community. But the Ministry of Education (PP) paralyzed the procedure in 2015, considering that UCAM had not corrected the deficiencies it had cited in organization, operation and facilities.
Mendoza then decided to try his luck in León with a proposal that was not well received by the Minister of Education of Castilla y León (PP), Fernando Rey. “There is no room for one more university here. The community already has five private universities, including one onlineand four audiences spread across 11 campuses,” he said in February 2018 in The world of Castile and León. Despite their opposition, a group of businessmen attempted to put pressure on the Council through the then mayor. The conversations were recorded and broadcast as part of the Operation Creeper against influence peddling in 44 municipalities. The Leonese part ended up being archived.
That same year, 2018, they tried their luck in Malaga. They had the full support of their advisor, the famous Francisco Rede la Torre (PP), ready to give them land at an almost free price. But Ciudadanos, who left the municipality, imposed a public tender and, ultimately, Alfonso
Also in 2018, in October, UCAM officially requested the Alcorcón City Council (PP) to implement the Sports University in collaboration with the COE. The intention was to occupy the Arts Creation Center, a pharaonic and empty circus built by the PSOE. But his proposal, with an investment of 15 million, did not convince the court and the competition was void.
Work in Torrejón began in 2024 and is now a reality. The president of the COE does not hide his harmony with the PP, despite his public position: “It does not surprise me that Nacho (Vázquez Casavilla) was the mayor with the most votes in Spain and that you, Alejandro (Navarro), are too.” Ayuso refused to attend the inauguration of the public campus of the University of Alcalá, also in Torrejón.
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