A friend of mine who is a student at a private university in Madrid said that it was just a way for the pubic university students to get out of doing work and that they tended to complain more about that status quo ... don't know how biased his point of view is, but that's what he said.

Unfortunately the system of hiring professors can be rather shady in this country as well. I wouldn't call it nepotism, but sometimes it does boil down to who you know.

Churrito