Billion-Dollar Benefactor for Campuses in Latin America: a Spanish Bank

By Marion Lloyd, Mexico City. Santander's investments in higher education have paid off in new customers, critics say.
Last May nearly 1,000 university presidents from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal gathered in Mexico to discuss how to improve collaboration across countries. The event might never have happened if it weren't for the deep pockets of its corporate sponsor, the Spanish bank Santander.
Over the past 15 years, Santander has invested more than $1-billion in promoting internationalization among Ibero-American universities, and more recently, with their counterparts in Britain, China...
Santander operates a bank branch on the campus of La Salle U., in Mexico City, one of hundreds of campus branches in Latin America that offer special services for students and faculty.