Costa Blanca
Alicante and Elche Universities see part of their funding debt paid
By h.b.
May 20, 2008 - 8:00 AM

The Universities of Alicante and Elche are to be given seven million € of public funds next month so they can continue operation. Both the sites are technically bankrupt because of the debt owned to them by the Consell, which has finally agreed to make the interim payment.

The universities say that the debt was established in 2005 and has been increasing since then following the lack of payments from the regional government. It is now established to have reached 263 million € between Alicante and Elche alone, and across the whole Valencia region the universities are owed a total of 891 million € from the regional administration.

Meanwhile students from Industrial Technical Engineering department of the Miguel Hernández University, UHM, in Elche have presented a low consumption car which runs on ethanol and which they will take to compete in the Shell-Ecco Marathon competition between such vehicles in France on May 23 and 24.

The challenge is to see which vehicle, of the 300 taking part this year, can travel the furthest on a single litre of fuel.