The Government wants to regulate as soon as possible the creation of new universities after the setback suffered this week in the Supreme Court. The department led by Diana Morant is already working on a new regulation aimed at recovering a good part of the requirements introduced a year ago to tighten the opening of university centers, especially private ones. The Ministry assures that it wants to approve it "as soon as possible, within the framework established by the judicial resolution and with all legal guarantees," although for the moment it has not detailed either its definitive content or the schedule it intends to follow.
The movement comes just two days after the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the Supreme Court declared null the Royal Decree 905/2025, of October 7, after considering a resource from the Balearic Government. The decision does not assess whether the new requirements for universities were adequate or proportionate. The problem lies in how the regulation was drafted: the Executive resorted to an urgent processing without sufficiently justifying that urgency and, as a consequence, omitted the prior public consultation that should have been held before drafting the project.
The Supreme Court overturns the procedure, not the content
This nuance is fundamental. The Supreme Court has not declared illegal the requirements that the Government wanted to impose on the new universities nor has it concluded that they violated the freedom of education. What it considers contrary to law is the procedure used to approve them. According to the ruling, the desire for the new rules to be available quickly did not alone substantiate an extraordinary situation that would allow bypassing the prior consultation.
The consequence is especially important because the nullity affects the entire Royal Decree 905/2025. The text had substantially tightened the conditions for opening new universities. Among other issues, it introduced as a reference reaching 4,500 students during the first six years, expanded the requirements related to the academic offer and research, and reinforced the economic and personnel requirements. Private universities were also required to demonstrate their financial sustainability and have sufficient resources to develop the committed offer.
Sánchez: "We are not sitting idly by"
The reaction from Moncloa was immediate. Pedro Sánchez announced after the ruling was known that the Government would comply with the decision but would prepare another regulation. "We are not sitting idly by. We are already working on a new norm to prevent the university from becoming a business," said the president. The Ministry of Morant maintains the same position and argues that the need to reinforce the requirements "was and continues to be clear and urgent."
The Executive argues that the growth of private offerings can disrupt the balance of the system if it is not accompanied by sufficient standards. Spain currently has 50 public universities and 49 private ones, a minimal difference after years of expansion of privately owned centers. Since 2015 alone, 19 new private universities have been approved, according to data collected after the ruling.
The Government's discourse has repeatedly used the expression "chiringuito universities" to refer to projects it considers insufficient from an academic or research perspective. It is a political designation used by the Executive, not a legal category: the legislation does not distinguish "chiringuito universities," but sets requirements that any project must meet to be recognized and authorized.
Morant now has a problem with deadlines
The difficulty lies precisely in re-approving a similar norm without repeating the defect that led the Supreme Court to annul the previous one. If the Ministry reproduces the ordinary regulatory procedure, it will have to respect the corresponding participation, reports, and consultations. This considerably reduces the margin for approving a new royal decree before the general elections on November 29.
The political calendar has been further compressed after Pedro Sánchez dissolved the Cortes. The Royal Decree 806/2026, published on October 6 in the BOE, dissolved the Congress and the Senate and officially called for elections on Sunday, November 29. The electoral campaign will begin on November 13 and end on the 27th.
The dissolution of Parliament does not in itself prevent the Council of Ministers from approving a regulatory royal decree, but it does place the Government before an immediate electoral horizon and forces it to enhance guarantees after the Supreme Court has precisely annulled the previous norm due to a procedural defect.
Universities do not yet reveal how the new regulation will be
The Ministry is currently avoiding clarifying to what extent the next text will be identical to Royal Decree 905/2025. Sources from the department maintain that a "new regulation" is being prepared, but they have not advanced what requirements will be recovered, whether some of the thresholds questioned by autonomous communities and private universities will be modified, or when it might reach the Council of Ministers.
Balearic Islands, whose appeal has caused the annulment, had questioned measures such as the requirement to reach 4,500 students or certain housing obligations, considering that they particularly harmed insular and less populated territories. The Balearic Government celebrated the ruling because it understands that the state Executive did not justify the urgency and deprived those affected of a legally planned participation phase.
Criticism has also emerged from the private sector. Catholic Schools have demanded from the Executive "greater legal certainty and respect for private education" and argue that potential quality issues should be resolved through administrative controls without imposing disproportionate restrictions. The Ministry, on the contrary, defends that increasing the requirements is necessary to guarantee the overall quality of the university system.
The Government defends that the decree had other controls
Morant also does not share the political interpretation that has been made of the ruling. Her department recalls that the text went through the Council of State, which considered urgent processing possible, and that there was subsequently a public information period in which more than 60 allegations were presented. It also maintains that the project was known by public and private universities through the Council of Universities.
A race against time before 29-N
The scenario now leaves Morant facing a complex decision. The Government can try to approve a new regulation before the elections, but it will have to design it in such a way that it does not reproduce the defect detected by the Supreme Court. It can also initiate a longer processing and let the next Executive complete it, depending on the electoral outcome.
For now, the only certainty is the political will expressed by Sánchez and the Ministry: the Government wants to recover the restrictions it considers necessary to regulate university expansion. The Supreme Court ruling has not closed that debate, but it has forced the Executive to return to the starting point and to do so this time with a procedure capable of overcoming judicial control.
With 49 private universities compared to 50 public ones and the general elections less than two months away, the regulation of new campuses thus becomes another issue that fully enters the final stretch of the legislature. Morant wants to lift the norm that has just fallen, but the same factor that now works against her is the one that toppled the previous decree: the rush.