A simmering spat over candidates for government posts boiled over this week with revelations that a Bogotá university was faking professional titles for workers in Petro’s administration.
According to congress members revealing the scandal, 24 public servants got top contracts using dodgy titles from Universidad Fundación San José, a mold-breaking higher education institute once famed for accessible courses, but now under scrutiny for selling degrees.
They also accused Petro and his education chiefs of dragging their feet in investigating the university for the suspected fraud case.
“Petro’s promises for education come to nothing,” said house representative Catherine Juvinao after she identified 24 cases where officials and contractors in top government entities appeared to have been hired with diplomas from the Univerisity Foundation San José without sitting technical exams.
One stand-out case was a government functionary who, according to university records, graduated in four quite different degrees – Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, Public Accounting and International Marketing – on the same day.
“This is one of the most serious cases. Who graduates with four degrees on the same day?,” the representative said in an interview with Semana magazine.
According to Juvinoa, the university handed out diplomas to students who had failed to complete the independent technical tests, known as PruebaPro, and in some cases had not studied at all.
Fake titles for plum jobs
Although academic fraud has occured regularly in Colombia – and similar scandals have rocked previous governments – the revelations by Juvinao and her team targeted an administration that promised to turn its back on corruption.
This week’s revelations followed a political dogfight in 2025 over the proposed appointment of 23-year-old Juliana Guerrero as vice-minister of youth. The candidate, who was close to both Petro and his education minister, was already embroiled in controversies over private use of police planes. Then in September she was found to have falsified her accounting qualifications at the university.
After public pressure the university rescinded the degree, and Guerrero herself told Caracol news that she intended to take the independent exams to regain her title in November.
But the political damage was done, and further investigations revealed a bigger suspicion: that the Petro government was routinely using the university – with which it had fat contracts – to fudge academic requirements for candidates favoured for plum jobs.
This week Juvinao accused Petro government or running a “Cartel of Dodgy Diplomas” in cahoots with the San José university. “It’s bad news that our first left-wing government ended up being a monument to mediocrity, captured by an institution,” she said.
The state was “closing the door to those who studied hard by merit,” she said, while calling for a probe by the Attorney General’s office, adding that: “we have all the evidence to support any investigation”.
Cash for credits
For its part, the Ministry of Education announced this week it was investigating the University Foundation San José related to the case of Guerrero, Petro’s preferred candidate for the Ministry of Youth.
In the same communication, the ministry strongly denied it had any link to “illicit activities related to the expedition of academic titles”.
Petro last year repeatedly defended Guerrero’s nomination for the post even after her degree was pulled by the university. Her only error was to claim her title before taking the final exam, he said, suggesting a storm in a teacup. The attacks were personal and political, he said.
“So, Juliana’s graduation exam, after completing her studies, was registered for in July and is scheduled for next November. Is that the summary of this scandal?”, he wrote on X.
At first view Petro’s gesture seemed on target; young candidates, particularly female, get torrents of abuse in the rough-and-tumble of Colombian politics, often facing a public scrutiny less applied to old-school politicos.
But in the rear view mirror that defence now looks misplaced: financial data revealed this month showed Guerrero had paid for her degree course long after receiving her diploma – almost unheard of in Colombia – while the university itself confirmed that she “never went to classes or presented exams nor complied with the accounting program”.
Doubling down
This week Petro doubled down on his defense of the University Foundation San José, claiming the accusations unfairly focused on “poor single mothers” trying to get ahead.
“Private universities…allow these working women to study faster,” he said. “[Politicians] to gain votes shouldn’t destroy working women. I expect a public apology from these congresswomen to the working women of Colombia.”
To complicate the president’s narrative, referring to the Guerrero case, the university announced it had “detected and denounced a fraud” and had itself requested the attorney general’s office to investigate. It also promised to “stregthen internal audits” to prevent future cheating.
Representative Juvinao told Semana told Semana magazine that the Guerrero case suggested corruption in the form of cash for qualifications, and was likely “the tip off an iceberg”.
“There is a deliberate strategy to fabricate qualifications to fit the needs of Petro’s government departments,” she said.
In a country where people struggle for further education – and highly value hard-earned academic qualifications – what started as an online spat over a youth representative is becoming a scandal with much more scope.
