Fulfilling one of his campaign promises, the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, signed the bill that expands free access to technical training centers and professional institutes for students who belong to the 70% most vulnerable population in the country. His administration goal is to reach 90% of young persons.

Should the bill be enacted by the National Congress, 13,000 students will be benefited. They belong to the seven socioeconomic decile.

Meanwhile, the president stated that the implementation of the benefit will be according to the procedures and requisites established by the Superior Education Act.

Who can be part of the process?

• Students who are starting their first year in superior education.
• Students who are already enrolled in a superior level technical or professional program, and want to choose one of these benefits.
• Students who have a scholarship and wish to complement it with CAE, or students who have CAE and want to have a scholarship.
• Students who have scholarships or free access, who do not fit the renovation requests and who may lose this benefit during 2017.

Old and new students can access this support by registering in the Formulario Único de Acreditación Socioeconómica (FUAS). To access the platform, they may be registered in the webpage, by entering their personal data.

If they are already registered, they only need to start a session, and follow the steps requested by the system, entering data requested by the form of the benefit they want to access.

Should the bill be enacted, 13 institutions will be available for students, including the Professional Institute Duoc UC and the Technical Training Center Inacap.

Piñera said that the costs for implementing this bill will around CLP $19,527 million, if 13,000 students access the benefit. They will join the other 167,000 beneficiaries who already have free access, so the total annual cost will be around CLP 310 billion.