Graduate education financing. An indispensable review in the modernization of health education in universities El financiamiento del postítulo. Una revisión indispensable en la modernización de la educación superior universitaria en salud.

Abstract

Due to the social and economical changes in the Chilean university and health systems in the last decades, the traditional financing model of the Faculty of Medicine and postgraduate training programs became obsolete. The progressive reduction of the fiscal budget has forced the search of alternate financing sources. The payment of specialization is, at the present moment, an obliged, inappropriate and without compensation subsidy of the universities to the public and private health system, that profit of training professionals and to the specialists that acquire skills that will increase their earnings. Equable financing systems should be established in which the direct beneficiaries, institutions or individuals, would pay the expenses. A national scholarship fund or deferred credits seem reasonable alternatives that should be promptly established to allow the survival of university postgraduate training programs.