Long before hurricanes Irma and María utterly devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017, the most important public higher education institution on the archipelago was weathering a storm of its own: austerity. And some are now sounding the alarm that these natural disasters have given authorities an excuse to push through even more draconian measures at the University of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, a US territory, currently struggles under the weight of a $74 billion debt, and $49 billion in pension obligations, the likes of which are a product of a decades-long recession, illegal bond issuances and trades, and an overly advertised tax haven. The legal framework that made these practices possible and established Puerto Rico as an exception to the US tax code was enacted by the US Congress. This has lead many to argue that Puerto Rico’s debt is inherently colonial. To try to deal with Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, US lawmakers passed legislation called PROMESA, which, among many things, created an unelected oversight board and a process for restructuring the debt. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law in June 2016, and thus, the Fiscal Control Board was imposed on Puerto Rico — with very little say from the people of Puerto Rico, who, despite being US citizens, do not have voting representation in US Congress and cannot vote for president. The Fiscal Control Board's reign has been characterized by austerity, and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) figures among the public institutions it has singled out for steep budget cuts, campus and academic program eliminations and consolidations, tuition spikes, and payroll reductions — recommendations that UPR's administration and the local government seem largely intent on following. With rumors regarding the privatization of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority (PREPA) making their rounds as well, fear emerged that UPR could eventually head in the same direction. A considerable portion of UPR's student body and faculty, however, were resisting these measures, a two-month-long student strike earlier this year an example of this struggle. But then hurricanes Irma and María hit the archipelago with tremendous force, and the UPR campuses, all 11 of them, suffered considerable damage. After hurricane María, UPR assessed more than $118 million in losses system-wide; UPR-Humacao registered as the campus that suffered the most devastation, having been the closest to the area through which the eye of the hurricane entered Puerto Rico. Between hurricanes Irma and María, all campuses were closed for almost a month to more than five weeks. Before UPR decided to reopen its campuses, a number of universities stateside, such as Tulane University and Brown University, as well as private universities in Puerto Rico, started hurricane-relief programs, offering students an opportunity to continue their academic semester and studies. When UPR finally reopened, campuses were still plagued by fungus infestations, power outages, non-potable water service, closed libraries and research centers, and damaged classrooms, offices and public spaces. This combination of forces could represent a problem for UPR: it could lose a significant portion of its student body, and that could put UPR at greater risk than before of falling victim to what Canadian journalist Naomi Klein calls the shock doctrine: a “brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock […] to push through radical pro-corporate measures”. Faculty members, like professor Maritza Stanchich from UPR-Río Piedras, argued as much on Facebook: OJO, while perhaps for some this is well-intentioned, initiatives to offer students in hurricane-affected areas in-state tuition in states such as Florida might also embolden further shock-doctrine-style shake ups at UPR. Tulane, after all, was not in the same boat, so to speak, pre Katrina. Entiendo el impulso positivo de estas iniciativas estudiantiles, pero creo que sería ingenuo pensar que no se podía utilizar de manera nefasto para la UPR. [Editor's note: This was a public Facebook post uploaded on September 29, and there have been many exchanges about this since.] CAREFUL, while perhaps for some this is well-intentioned, initiatives to offer students in hurricane-affected areas in-state tuition in states such as Florida might also embolden further shock-doctrine-style shake ups at UPR. Tulane, after all, was not in the same boat, so to speak, pre [Hurricane] Katrina [which devastated the US Gulf Coast in 2005]. I understand the positive intention of these student initiatives, but I think it would be naive to think that they couldn't be used in a disastrous way for UPR.