El régimen de gobernanza financiera y la politización de la deuda estudiantil en Chile

Student loans have become a central instrument for expanding access to higher education. In Chile, the State-Guaranteed Student Loan (Crédito con Aval del Estado, CAE) enabled an unprecedented massification of enrollment, but it also produced high levels of indebtedness, default, fiscal strain and, ultimately, the politicization of debt. This article argues that such tensions are not mere by-products of financing schemes, but constitutive conflicts of credit regimes, which transform debt into a political issue and erode the legitimacy of public policy. To account for this process, this article advances the concept of financial governance, defined as the systematic use of instruments that mobilize future resources to address present demands, and as the challenge of governing the social, economic, and moral relations they engender. From this perspective, student loans are not simply devices of educational finance but mechanisms that shape debtor-subjectivities and catalyze dynamics of mobilization and political contention. Empirically, the Chilean case is examined through a combination of literature review, secondary data, and interviews with debtors, policymakers, and system administrators. The findings reveal that while the CAE expanded access, it simultaneously generated new social and fiscal tensions, leading to the rise of debtor movements and mounting pressure to replace the model. In doing so, the article shows that governing through credit necessarily entails governing the conflicts that credit itself produces.