The cut-off mark in Political Science rises due to the registration of the Princess of Asturias at UC3M

Leonor is the best advertisement for Carlos III. The cut-off mark in Political Science, the degree that the Princess of Asturias will begin studying this Monday, has risen 1.2 points this year: from 9.5 to 10.7 due to a large increase in demand for a place, which has made admission more expensive. The jump is very striking, because the variation in the minimum access grade between one course and another is usually just a few tenths. In this edition, in addition to the royal presence, for years the future cadres of political parties (from the left and, above all, from the right) have aspired to enroll in that campus. While in Catalonia or the Balearic Islands they look towards Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, ​​their great academic ally, sponsored and pampered by the Generalitat.

The Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) is advertised today on buses in the capital as “the most innovative university in Spain”, but there was a time, at the end of the 20th century (it was founded in 1989), when the institution where the heiress is going to study was promoted as “the public difference”. Because the purpose of its creator, the father of the Constitution Gregorio Peces Barba, was to demonstrate that a public campus could offer a level of excellence and quality equal to that of other world-renowned private academic centers. And the prestige achieved by its teaching staff is a fact, although entering it is within the reach of few because it is, deliberately, small in size, for an elite.

For this September, however, Carlos III has offered 3,999 places in the first year of study, 180 more than last year - they are launching the Primary Education degree with 40 places - and 295 more than in 2025, when they brought the Neuroscience degree to Spain for the first time. They are still few if we take into account that in the ordinary call alone the six public universities of Madrid have admitted 49,197 first-year students, 15,000 of them at the Complutense.

In the ordinary call, 8,437 students requested a degree from this university as their first option within the Madrid university district. Many did not even try, convinced, by the grades from previous years, that they would not enter. The princess, who attended an international baccalaureate at a private school in Wales, entered the quota of students trained in foreign systems before the Selectivity exam was held. At UC3M they cannot exceed 8% of the total student body. His father, who attended COU at a school in Canada and then went through the military academies, also did not take the entrance exam when entering the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1988, where he studied Law.

This year there are more seats because the rector, Ángel Arias, is aware that this elitism is difficult to defend when the cut-off marks to enter a Madrid public university are through the roof and thousands of candidates are left out. But, despite the modest increase in positions, this September the cut-off mark rises again in 44 of the 62 degrees. Also that of the heiress.

The applicant who can afford it seeks, after rejection in the public, refuge in a private center. In the capital there are 15 paying universities that are governed by the Spanish university system (and another handful of unquantified foreign ones), but the Crown at no time contemplated that the heir to the throne study in a private center. As her father (Autónoma) and her mother (Complutense) did before, and unlike her sister, Infanta Sofía, who enrolled last year at a private and foreign campus: Forward College.

The “public difference”

Carlos III, without a doubt, responds to this “public difference”, due to the conception of its campuses, its small size and its personalized teaching, very far from the lecture halls that its parents set foot in generalist universities.

Some rectors of large public universities, which accept many students per class, although fewer than before the Bologna Plan, ironically about this elitism. If they set the barrier at 40 enrolled per classroom instead of 60, they argue, the last student would enter with the same grade as at UC3M. The rector of the Complutense (UCM), Joaquín Goyache, established a comparison with his academic center in 2023: “Carlos III is an elite public university with a lot of marketing and does not cover as many areas as the Complutense, which is very transversal.”

The UCM, as a generalist and dean university, with 190 years of history, offers degrees without great demand, but which a State cannot stop offering because they are pillars of knowledge. While the young Carlos III is focused on certain specific areas - she started with the social sciences, expanded to engineering and has been wanting to have Medicine for years - with many job opportunities, such as in the private network.

This very high employability then results in position in many rankings, although not in all. This year, the institution has left the prestigious Shanghai ranking, weighed down by the push of Chinese campuses and punished for its size (less scientific production in total numbers), its youth (it does not have Nobel Prize winners among its alumni or faculty) and its little attention, although increasing, to the health sciences that monopolize the majority of research funds.

“The Carlos III represents the same thing that the Autonomous represented for Felipe VI in 1988,” reflects a professor of the institution who declines to appear. "They have looked for a young university, with a fresh, innovative air. The Autonomous University had just turned 20 years old when his father started it, and this one [UC3M] is now 35 years old. It was a pioneer in teaching in English, in betting on international teaching staff and students, in launching master's degrees of enormous quality... It is the perfect choice for someone who is cosmopolitan."

UC3M has been known as the favorite in the pools to train the heir for years. No one from the Royal Family openly raised that possibility, but they did show interest and the King has visited the campus on several occasions. In the rumor mills there was speculation that the Princess of Asturias would enroll in the Autonomous Community, like the King, but the Royal House did not test its rectorate. “It would be linking the Crown too much with the UAM and I don't think it would be convenient for the Autonomous University either,” reflects the professor.

The Getafe campus looks American with its large lawns and friendly buildings. But the years go by and the financial crisis suffered by Madrid universities leaves its mark on facilities that have been deteriorating. The investment per student was 5,362 euros in 2025, according to an analysis by the CYD Foundation, compared to more than 10,000 euros in Navarra, Cantabria or the Valencian Community. “Since 2023 we have carried out 90% of the reform works in the history of the university,” says the rector of Carlos III, Ángel Arias. The budget has since gone up 20%.

The Complutense has the oldest Political Science degree in Spain (1944) and Infanta Cristina graduated from it; but that option has not been considered, not even in the academic field. Podemos was born there and the right has demonized this faculty to the extreme, which suffers sporadic ultra attacks and smear campaigns in the press.

It is a very combative, mobilized and markedly left-wing center, but where people of other ideologies also coexist without problems on a daily basis. Its deanery, reviled, nevertheless encourages the exchange of ideas typical of a university, but is dogged by controversy every time a controversial figure visits its space.