Education Commons^™

A Spanish Bank Becomes A Billion-Dollar Benefactor For Latin American Campuses, Marion Lloyd

Marion Lloyd

Over the past 15 years, the Spanish bank Santander has spent more than $1 billion financing scholarships, research exchanges, and other programs at universities throughout Spain, Latin America, and a dozen other countries. That investment - by far the largest by a private foundation in higher education - is not totally disinterested, critics say, as the bank seeks to reach new customers among the upwardly mobile higher education community. Still, in the absence of a region-wide system, such as Europe´s Bologna Process, Santander is playing a major role in Latin America as a promoter of internationalization.