Spain's Supreme Court annuls decree tightening rules for private universities

The ruling

Spain's Supreme Court, through its Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo, annulled Royal Decree 905/2025, dated 7 October 2025, which tightened the criteria for creating new universities. The decree was meant to stop private higher education centres from multiplying without meeting excellence standards. The court upheld an appeal filed by the Balearic Islands regional government and did not examine the substance of the text. Its reasoning rests on the urgent procedure, which the court found insufficiently justified, so the mandatory prior public consultation was skipped without legal cover. The court also ordered the State administration to pay costs of 6,000 euros. In its reasoning, the court said the only element offered to justify urgency, approval of the reform in time for the 2025/26 academic year, weighed more as political will than as an objective cause.

The only element used to justify it (approval of the reform so that it could be in force in the 2025/26 academic year) is more a political will for its prompt entry into force than an objective cause that proves urgency, given the need to avoid certain effects produced by the current regulation.

Urgency and the skipped consultation

The Council of Ministers agreed on 1 April 2025 to process the draft urgently. The court said the explanation given for that decision did not allow the circumstances it listed to be considered extraordinary or unforeseeable. Those circumstances, according to the court, were the reform's aim of allowing the rules to take effect in a given academic year and the government's wish to change the university system. Because urgency was declared, the consultation stage was not held.

The Balearic education councillor Antoni Vera said he was satisfied with the ruling, which he said reflected all the claims and petitions the regional government had filed. He accused the central government of passing the law under cover of night and by treachery. He objected in particular to the requirement that a new university reserve 10% of its places for student residences.

This has nothing to do with the nature of the university itself or with university quality.

Vera also said the decree required 4,500 university students in any university in any region, without regard to regions with smaller populations. ABC reported that the ruling also exposed earlier warnings from the Consejo de Estado about procedural shortcomings.

Government and sector reactions

Pedro Sánchez wrote on X that the public university "is under siege" and that the uncontrolled proliferation of private universities harms the quality of the system and equal opportunity. He said the government accepts the ruling, "but we are not sitting idly by", and is already drafting a new regulation to prevent universities from becoming a business. He added that higher education needs rules that protect it and more resources from the competent administrations.

The employers' group ACADE, which represents private education centres, welcomed the ruling "very positively" and called the justification for urgency "insufficient". The group had earlier voiced deep concern about the reform, arguing it was pushed through without the necessary dialogue or consensus.

The student body CREUP rejected the decision and said the decree was late but absolutely necessary.

The speed with which new universities are being created is not a hypothetical or future question but a reality transforming the Spanish university system at a pace that demands a regulatory response.

What the annulment changes

With the annulment, the 4,500-student minimum for the first six years of activity and the requirement that 10% of in-person students have university housing fall away automatically, according to ABC. The ruling also unblocks close to ten private university projects that had stalled in Aragón, Galicia, Andalucía, Extremadura and Canarias, returning the processing power to regional governments. ABC also reported that other communities governed by the People's Party, including Madrid, Extremadura, Aragón and La Rioja, joined the Balearic appeal, along with several private academic entities.