The objective of this article was to identify and understand extra-academic aspects that hinder the academic performance of Chilean university students benefiting from free tuition. A total of 42 students, enrolled in 11 Chilean universities representative of the national spectrum, were interviewed. From critical discourse analysis, family and individual aspects hindering academic performance were identified. Amid our findings, students’ attitudes to resignify some of the obstacles to their performance stand out. The obstacles identified express the high social and economic segmentation faced by these non-paying students in the university context.