Hundreds of thousands of university students hit the streets of Chile’s major cities again today, calling for free, quality education available to all in the South American nation.

Although Chile’s universities are often called the best in Latin America, the students point out that’s only for those who can afford it.  Wealthy and middle class students generally get good educations.  Lower middle class to poor students suffer in under-funded state schools with fewer and aging resources.

Brought together by the organizers of Confech, various groups took part, and the common goal among all marchers was to denounce the state of education in Chile. 

“We are marching because we want free and quality education,” said Valentina Ibañez, a first-year student at Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

“Education should be equal for everyone, it should be free — we all have the same rights.”

For the most part, the marches were peaceful, although there were skirmishes with the “Carabineros” militarized police in the capital Santiago, Valparaiso, Arica, and other cities. The protest turned ugly when police used tear gas to disperse the crowd at the march’s end in Estación Mapocho.

More than a hundred people were arrested.

With 150,000 on the streets of Santiago and thousands more in the other cities, today’s was the largest organized protest in Chile in two years.

President Sebastián Piñera has introduced a series of reforms, such as a reduction in student loans student.  But he has refused to deal with the root problem of Chile’s education, which was inherited from the fascist Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.