Higher education in Spain

The university was founded as a "General School of the kingdom" by King Alfonso IX of León in 1218 so that the Leonese people could study at home without having to leave for Castile.

The reign of Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and Isabella I, Queen of Castile, saw a professionalisation of the apparatus of government in Spain, which led to a demand for men of letters (letrados) who were university graduates (licenciados), of Salamanca, Valladolid and Alcalá de Henares.

Many of the medieval universities in Western Europe were born under the aegis of the Catholic Church, usually as cathedral schools or by papal bull as Studia Generali.

In Europe, young men proceeded to university when they had completed their study of the trivium–the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

The creation of the Spanish Empire brought a significant expansion in royal positions for university-trained lawyer-bureaucrats who were not nobles and were dependent on and loyal to the crown.

The university was founded as a "General School of the kingdom" by Alfonso IX in 1218 so that the Leonese people could study at home without having to leave for Castile.

[6] High-ranking army men and senior administrators of the empire usually pursued a rigorous education for their sons in Spain.

The aim was to continue producing future leaders to serve the Spanish Empire and its interests, often resulting in a well-developed final product of colonial governors.

Admission to the Spanish university system is determined by the nota de corte (literally, "cutoff grade") that is achieved at the end of the two-year Bachillerato, an optional course that students can take from the age of 16 when the period of obligatory secondary education (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, or ESO) comes to an end.