LATIN AMERICAN CENTER OF
RESEARCH IN HIGHER EDUCATION
He has a degree in Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (1996), a master's degree in Law from the Methodist University of Piracicaba (2007) and a doctorate (2022) in Education (Public Policy area) from PUCCAMP. He is currently a professor and coordinator of the Law Course at the Centro Universitário Salesiano de São Paulo, as well as Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Education, Knowledge and Society (PPGEduCS) at the University of Vale do Sapucaí (UNIVÁS). He was director of operations at the Centro Universitário Salesiano de São Paulo, at the Campinas (2011/2018), Americana (2019/2022) and Piracicaba (2022) Units. He has experience in the areas of Law (emphasis on Civil Law and Civil Procedural Law) and Education (emphasis on Public Policies in Higher Education). (Text provided by the author)
FINANCING OF BRAZILIAN HIGHER EDUCATION
To address the importance of student financing for students' access and retention in Brazilian higher education, it is necessary, to begin with, to consider some statistical data.
According to data from the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP), in 2022, 78% of student enrollments in Brazilian higher education were in the private sector, that is, of the almost 9.5 million students, 7.4 million studied in private institutions.
When we consider the average income of Brazilians, according to the latest data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2022, the per capita income of Brazilians was R$ 1,625.00. Finally, according to data from the Hoper Consulting Company, the average monthly fee for an in-person undergraduate course in 2021 was R$758.44.
Based on these initial data, it is easy to see that in Brazilian higher education there is a high concentration of students in the private sector and that the average Brazilian income is not enough to pay for their entry and stay in a higher education course.
It is in this context that the importance of financing as a public policy for access and retention in higher education becomes apparent.
The Student Financing Fund (FIES) is a typical public policy for direct financing for continuing in higher education. This is a program offering refundable financing, in which the Public Authority assumes the payment (full or partial) of the university tuition fee for the benefit of the student who, in turn, after a grace period following the completion of their course , pays the financing to the Public Authority, with subsidized interest rates. Fies was, especially in the first half of the 2010s, responsible for the entry and/or retention of millions of students. However, from the second half of the 2010s onwards, there was a slowdown in the financing granting process. Nevertheless, Fies is still identified as a public policy with a strong potential for the inclusion of historically excluded groups, but, on the other hand, it is also identified as a strong mechanism for transferring public resources to the private sector, strengthening the mercantile dimension of the segment.
The University for All Program (PROUNI) is also a public student financing policy, but in an indirect and non-refundable modality. By granting some tax benefits, private institutions can join the Program, assuming the commitment to fill part of their vacancies with students nominated by the Public Authorities, based on socioeconomic criteria. PROUNI has its merit in directing the process of expansion and massification of higher education for the low-income population, previously excluded from this level of training. In 16 years of the Program (between 2006 and 2021), more than 4.7 million scholarships were granted. One of the most positive points of PROUNI is that it is a non-refundable program, that is, it does not generate student debt; In this Program (unlike what happens with FIES) there is no financial transfer from the Public Power to the participating institutions; but there is a tax waiver, in that the Public Power stops demanding a range of taxes from participating institutions.
In parallel with the public policies for granting refundable (FIES) and non-refundable (PROUNI) financing, in the effort to attract low-income students, the vast majority of private institutions also offer private financing modalities, both refundable and non-refundable ( in the form of commercial discounts on the monthly fee). The best-known example of a repayable private financing program, maintained by an external entity, is PRAVALER, offered by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). In 2022, it raised R$238 million in the capital market to finance students, especially attentive to the increase in demand, caused by the continued weakening of FIES. In the case of private financing, the interest rates charged are significantly higher when purchased with those charged in FIES, causing the recent graduate to become indebted.
Texts by the author related to the topic:
Distance education as a strategy for attracting students after the reduction | of the Fies offer
Marcelo Augusto Scudeler and Elvira Cristina Martina Tassoni
Marcelo Augusto Scudeler and Elvira Cristina Martina Tassoni
The influence of FIES on the pricing policy of in-person higher education courses.
Marcelo Augusto Scudeler and Elvira Cristina Martina Tassoni
Brazilian Higher Education Inclusion Policy Panel based on open data from the Ministry of Education (MEC)
This panel contains selected information from three Brazilian higher education inclusion policies: the University for All Program (Prouni), the Higher Education Student Financing Fund (FIES) and the Unified Selection System (SISU), with data on the entry into the public system under the Quota Law (Law 12,711 of 2012).
The databases consulted to prepare this panel are available on the Ministry of Education's Open Data Portal. As these are different bases generated by the MEC, it was not possible to standardize all the variables relating to the inclusion policies considered, since some variables are present in one base and not in another (example: race and ethnicity). Likewise, the historical series also varied.
Even with these limitations, we consider that the advertising of this panel is relevant for students, researchers, managers and other professionals interested in understanding the dynamics involving higher education in Brazil.
Henrique Prinhorato (UNISO)
André Pires (UNISO)