The recent rise of social protest in Latin America has con-tradicted the hypotheses that predicted neoliberal reforms would weaken social movements in the region. In this re-spect, the Chilean student movement is paradigmatic both for its massiveness and for emerging in one of the coun-tries with the greatest neoliberal consolidation. Using a da-tabase that collects the university protests registered in 30 years (1990-2019), the article analyzes some factors that could explain the protest cycle. The results show that the level of public spending in higher education, the number of student aid education recipients, and the economic growth have relevant effects on the annual frequency of protests (although with different strengths). These findings illustrate how social and political pressures from new social groups constituted under the wing of neoliberal reforms exert an influence over protest cycles, in the context of an increase of expectations and demands.