However, their activities were interrupted after the Independence of Central America in 1821. At that time, each province of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala promoted the creation of a local university. The university remained as an institution in Guatemala, but it closed in 1829, after the conservative criollos were expelled from Central America, and in 1834 converted into the "Academy of Sciences". In 1840, with the comeback of the conservatives, it was turned into the "Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo" once again and even for a short period between 1918 and 1920, it was called "Estrada Cabrera University" in honor of the then president, lawyer Manuel Estrada Cabrera. After the Revolution of October 1944, the USAC managed to obtain total autonomy, but from 1954, with the resurgence of Catholic education and the establishment of private universities, an attrition process of the university began, which included constant nonpayment of the budget percentage that corresponds to the university by the Constitution and the persecution and assassination of student leaders and faculty members throughout the duration of the Guatemala Civil War (1960–1996).