Trends in Higher Education in Brazil: interactions among expansion policies, institutions’ characteristics, and students’ social background
Abstract
Brazil faced the largest expansion of Higher Educational system in the past two decades, especially after 1995. Considering that the expansion process was unequal across geographical areas and courses, besides it was also related to the students’ social characteristics. The objective of this paper is to classify the Brazilian undergraduate courses based on its characteristics, such as, i) type of institution: private, public, other; ii) academic organization, as university, college or federal institutes; iii) region where the institution is located: North, Northeast, South, Southeast, Central-West; iv) percentage of students who entered by affirmative action in each course, and v) percentage of the students who have any kind of scholarship in each course. We used two step cluster analysis and data from Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP). The data set is the ENADE for the years 2013, 2014 e 2015. The results show that on one hand, Brazilian system have greater diversification in terms of new courses, and more diverse socioeconomic background of students; on the other hand, this scenario also leads into a more hierarchical high education system in the country.
Trends in Higher Education in Brazil: interactions among expansion policies, institutions’ characteristics, and students’ social background
1. Introduction and Background
Higher education system in Brazil has some gaps in terms of low enrollment rate and great discrepancies among groups. Brazilian net rate of schooling is one of the lowest in Latin American, it has not achieved the goal of 30% enrollment among young people between 18 and 24 years old in 2011 (ALMEIDA NETO, 2013). Moreover, High School students from different socioeconomic backgrounds have also very different odds in order to complete the transition to the Higher Educational System. Recent studies have shown that differences in access are bigger by class and race and that these barriers are not present in the basic education, but they continuously grow and it is also present in the higher education (COSTA RIBEIRO, 2006; MARTELETO ET AL., 2016). This gap becomes evident when comparing the rate of the Brazilian Black population enrolled in colleges and universities. Whereas 50% of Brazilian population is black, only 10% of them are attending the Higher Education.
In contrast, Brazil faced the largest expansion of Higher Educational system in the past two decades, especially after 1995. In this period, federal government simplified requirements to create new private high education institutions and courses. During the 2000s, three major actions were taken by Brazilian government: i) in 2005, it was approved the Prouni, which is a governmental program that offers scholarships to low socioeconomic status students in private institutions; ii) in 2009, the government had an expansion plan of public institutions by increasing the number of vacancies, creating new courses, hiring more professors as well as creating new universities in less developed regions of Brazil, as North and Northeast; iii) in 2012, the Affirmative Action policies were approved and the objective was to increase the number of Black and low socioeconomic background students in federal universities. The federal universities are public and have the best education in the country. Because of competition it is hard to get a place be admitted on them, therefore
over time they have become elite spaces. These policies were also implemented in some public universities at the state level – for example, State University of Rio de Janeiro. As a result of all these changes and expansion policies, Brazil Higher Educational system increased from 1.5 million enrollments in 1995 to more than 6 million in 2014.
This growth in vacancies supply was viewed as necessary in Brazil in order to improve the country’s economic dynamic and reduce inequalities in Higher Education. Nonetheless, the quality of new courses and how the new demand for Higher Education have been constantly questioned by academic groups throughout Brazil whether they have actually become part of the system or if they have been still an excluded group in the high education system. It is widely known that educational institutions in Brazil are distinctly valued by society and by labor market. In this sense, we aim to classify courses according to institutional, regional and public policy characteristics, and understand how these courses may attract students with different social backgrounds. Moreover, we also analyze how the students in each type of course perform in the National Exam (ENADE), which is used to rank the courses across the country. As Lucas (2001) pointed out, while the access to Higher Education became easier and more equal among different groups, other differentiation mechanisms and strategies are adopted by elite groups in order to maintain their prestigious position in society. Looking at the expansion process in Brazil, what type of inequality reduction is happening? Is it possible to identify course stratification in the country? In terms of performance, are there differences between elite and non-elite courses and institutions?
In this sense, the objective of this paper is to classify the Brazilian undergraduate courses based on its characteristics, since they have been increasing in Brazil over time. However, as we mentioned above, this growth is associated to institutions’ characteristics, costs and requirements. Each type of undergraduate course requires different investments in infrastructure and research, in addition to the way that society and market value some fields over others. In this sense, different courses attract students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We also aim to verify whether different courses’ profiles are associated to different results in the national exam (ENADE).
2. Data and Methods
We used two step cluster analysis1 and data from Instituto Nacional de
Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP), which is the
Brazilian Institute responsible for the educational system tests, and several data collection projects. The data set is the ENADE (The National Performance Exam for concluding undergraduate students) for the years 2013, 2014 e 2015 in order to cover all the courses in the same institution and fields, once the test is taken triennially for each knowledge field.
The sample has only students who have already completed 80% of the course therefore; it is a very specific group of undergraduates in the country. The disadvantage is that the results may not be generalized but the main advantage is that the data refers not only to individuals who could start an undergraduate course, but also who could finish it. Moreover, the Exam is required for all concluding students and it is not a sample, but the universe.
The variables we used for clustering were: i) type of institution: private, public, other; ii) academic organization, as university, college or federal institutes2; iii) region where the institution is located: North, Northeast, South, Southeast, Central-West; iv) percentage of students who entered by affirmative action in each course, and v) percentage of the students who have any kind of scholarship in each course.
Using the clusters results we described the institutions’ profile using a set of variables on student’s characteristics: i) sex, considering the percentage of women; ii) race, considering the percentage of blacks and browns together; iii) parental education, considering the percentage of students who has both parents with at least college education; iv) family income, considering the percentage of families with at least a monthly income of 10 times the minimum wage. The objective is to analyze whether the cluster concentrates a certain student profile, meaning that different institution’s profile may attract and retain different student profiles.
1
This method is appropriate because we are using categorical and quantitative variables, moreover, we do not need to define a specific number of the cluster.
We also used institutions’ characteristics, such as, percentage of PhD professors, and percentage of expenses in research; two variables considered quality measures, since they are not necessarily required for the existence of the courses, but they demonstrate the institution’s investments to improve their results. Therefore, we expect them to be more associated to higher Exam’s results and more traditional universities in Brazil, which usually are the federal ones.
Finally, we considered course’s characteristics: i) type: Bachelor of Science, Bachelor in Education, and Technologist; ii) Elite course: Medicine, Civil Engineer or Law and iii) the average ENADE’s grade. The first two variables are important because of the hierarchical model of Brazilian high education system, in which the Bachelor of Science is more valued than the others; in this regard the elite courses have also a special place in the system.
3. Results and Discussion
The total sample is 20,449 courses. The first table presents the descriptive statistics of the courses. Clustering is based on institutional, regional and public policy variables presented below, as well as socioeconomic variables which are tested to analyze trends and stratification between courses.
Table 1 – Descriptive Statistics for Undergraduate Courses – Brazil Higher Education, 2013, 2014 and 2015
Source: INEP. ENADE data, 2013, 2014, and 2015
Results from clustering process indicate eight groups (Table 2). These groups gathered undergraduate courses with similar characteristics in institutional, regional and public policy terms. In institutional terms, administrative category is the greater difference between groups. Courses under public administration are separated from the other courses because of its heterogeneity whether its means and general means were compared. The other category is private, which is very heterogeneous and characterizes the main institutions that led Higher Education expansion after 1995. That heterogeneity
Mean (or %) S.D.
% Both Parents With HE 21.2 17.3
% Household Income Above 10 Minimum Wage 21.2 17.6
Women Percentage 55.8 26.3
Blacks Percentage 8.9 10.3
Percentage of Professor with PhD 28.0 21.5
% Affirmative Action Students 18.7 15.7
% Scholarship 40.2 30.2
ENADE Grade Mean 42.2 9.7
Administrative Category Public Federal 17.9 Public State 9.6 Public municipality 0.9 Private 69.0 Other 2.5 Academic Organization University 47.7 College 49.6 Federal institutes 2.7 Bachelor Type Science 61.2 Education 23.1 Technologist 15.7 Region North 6.4 Northeast 18.5 Southern 45.8 South 20.1 Midwest 9.2 Observations 20,449
is remarkable, in a way that they were subdivided in seven other groups. Region is an important variable, considering inequalities between them. Even the wide spread advent of new courses in other regions, Southeast states has concentrated almost half of total enrollments. Moreover, there is huge regional variation in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, which explains differences in supply and demand of types of courses.
Courses characteristics are measured through types of bachelor’s degree obtained by who concludes those courses, namely, Bachelor in Science, in Education or in Technologist level. In terms of public policy, clustering regarded the share of students with Affirmative Action and Funding (Scholarship and Leasing), which are related to diversity measures. Both measures were the main actions taken by Brazilian Government in order to increase socioeconomic diversity with the objective to reduce class and race gap in the Higher Education system. The clusters’ distribution is presented in graph 1.
Graph 1 – Course distribution by clusters(%)
Source: INEP, ENADE data, 2013, 2014. and 2015 37 14.6 7.7 9.8 8.9 8.5 4.3 9.2 0 10 20 30 40 50 Pe rce n ta g e o f co u rse s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Table 2 – Cluster results
Source: INEP, ENADE data, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Table 3 presents the clusters’ characteristics related to the students, institutions and courses. In summary, we observe that:
The first cluster is defined by having mostly public federal universities which are spread across the country and they have on average 22% of students entered by affirmative action. About its characteristics, this cluster has the higher share of PhD professors (42.2%) and research expenses (33.8%). This is the group which has the best average grade in the ENADE.
In the second cluster predominates private colleges outside Southeast region. In regard to the cluster’s characteristics it has the lowest percentage of black students, only 6.3%, all courses are B.S and include the highest number of elite courses (16.1%).
The third group is defined by most B.S. courses in private colleges in the Southeast region, which is the richest and most industrialized region in the country. It has a high share of elite courses (14.3%). But it is worth highlighting that most of the elite courses in this group are Law undergraduate courses (70.2%), which are the least expensive among them, because it does not require labs, intensive research, and special equipment – that case has become a model during the expansion process. Law courses became typical case during the expansion
Cluster
Variables for clustering
Administrative Region Public Policy
Public Private University North Northeast Southeast South Middle
West AA Funding N 1 74 19 78 10 30 23 24 13 22 19 7,562 2 0.2 99 21 10 24 0 54 11 13 48 2,975 3 0.3 99 0 0 0 100 0 0 9 38 1,574 4 0.6 98 0 3.5 10.5 75.5 0 10.4 25 76 2,014 5 1.6 97 22 5.3 8.6 68.7 10 6.7 16 54 1,830 6 0.5 99 0 3.6 14 57 18 7.2 19 50 1,739 7 2.0 97 100 1.5 5.6 70 18 4.7 16 37 878 8 0.6 98 100 0.6 4.6 90.5 0 4.3 15 49 1,877 Total 28.3 69.3 47 6.5 18.5 45.8 20.1 9.2 18.7 40.2 20,449
process, because it attracts high socioeconomic background students who can afford it and also is valued as an elite course.
The fourth cluster is defined by private colleges outside the South region; this is also another type of courses that have increased in Brazil. Its main differences from the previous cluster are the higher percentage of students who have funding and have entered by affirmative action and a lower socioeconomic background among the students. This is quite related to one of the aspects of the expansion process in Brazil, which was offering financial support for students in private colleges and universities.
The fifth group is defined by private colleges with high percentage of students with funding, they are spreaded across the country. Its main characteristic is that all courses are Bachelor of Education. This is the cluster with more minority groups, women and blacks, and the lowest socioeconomic background, which reflects in the high percentage of students with funding. This is also another cluster that is associated to the expansion process in terms of a more diverse student profile, but a concentration of them in lower status courses. The ENADE’s result is high which is quite interesting because thisis, clearly, the most vulnerable group.
The sixth cluster is characterized by technologist courses in private colleges. It has a low percentage of women, about average in terms of parental education and family income, and a percentage above average of students with funding. The ENADE’s grade is below average.
The seventh group is similar to the previous one in terms of students’ profile and ENADE grade, but the main difference is that it is mostly in university instead of college, which reflects the higher percentage of PhD professors and higher investment in research, but do not reflect on better grades.
The last group is similar to the third cluster differentiated by the type of institution, meaning that here most are private universities, instead of colleges. The main characteristics are concentration of bachelor courses
in private universities in the Southeast region, with high presence of elite courses.
Table 3 – Students’ and Institutions’ characteristics by clusters
Source: INEP, ENADE data, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Women Blacks Parents’ education Income >10 PhD Research Science Educ Tecn Elite
1 56 9.8 22 20.2 43.2 33.8 53.9 38.3 7.8 0.5 44.7 2 55 6.3 20.5 22.4 16.5 16.4 100 0 0 16.1 41.2 3 53 6.5 21.9 23.7 19.7 12.6 100 0 0 14.3 41.8 4 55 9.9 19.1 19.2 16.3 10.7 100 0 0 10.5 38.8 5 69 11.9 14 12.9 18.2 14.5 0 100 0 0 44.1 6 49 9.9 22.8 23.6 14.8 9.2 0 0 100 0 37.9 7 49 8.1 25.9 28.6 24.8 15.0 0 0 100 0 37.3 8 52 7 24.5 26.2 27.4 17.8 100 0 0 14.0 42.2 Total 56 8.9 21.2 21.4 28.0 21.3 61 23.1 15.6 7.4 42.2 2,975
Cluster Students’ characteristics
Institutions’
characteristics Type of Bachelor
Courses’ characteristics N 878 1,83 1,739 1,574 Grade 20,449 1,877 2,014 7,562
4. Final Remarks
Higher Education is an important social institution that has an important role in society’s future stratification. It is influenced by several aspects, such as, political and policy choices, as we have discussed about the expansion policies in Brazil, and by students’ and institutions’ characteristics. We have already identified the results of the expansion process, since, on one hand, Brazilian higher education system has greater diversification in terms of new courses, and more diverse socioeconomic background of students; on the other hand, this scenario also leads into a more hierarchical high education system in the country.
References
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LUCAS. S. R. . Effectively Maintained Inequality: Education Transitions, Track Mobility, and Social Background Effects. The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 106(6), p. 1642-1690, 2001.
MARTELETO, L.; MARSCHNER, M.; CARVALHAES, F. Educational stratification after a decade of reforms on higher education access in Brazil.
