Medicine has seen a drop in competition since 2014 – 12/06/2023 – Education

Competition for admission to medical courses in the country fell by half from 2014 to 2022. During the period, the ratio of candidates per place went from 46.5 to 20.4.

The survey is part of the Medical Demography in Brazil study, conducted by the USP Faculty of Medicine. The strong expansion in the number of vacancies per year is the main factor.

In the first year analyzed, around 1 million and 64 thousand candidates competed for almost 23 thousand opportunities in institutions across the country. In the last one, just over 963 thousand people competed for approximately 47 thousand positions. This means that, while the number of applicants fell by 9.4%, the number of vacancies rose by 105.3%.

Of the new vacancies created, the majority came from private institutions, and more are to come. In October this year, the federal government launched a notice authorizing the operation of private medical courses with the expectation of opening up to 5,700 positions.

The public call allows sponsors of private educational institutions to present projects for installing new courses in pre-selected regions of 23 states.

For Mario Scheffer, professor at the Faculty of Medicine and coordinator of the survey, the rise of private colleges should be observed with more suspicion by students.

“Medical classes, with very expensive monthly fees, are an easy source of money for these institutions. Therefore, quality of teaching may not be a priority, but profit rather”, he says.

For him, creating new faculties is also unjustifiable due to the decreasing demand.

This year, according to the MEC (Ministry of Education), monthly fees for medical courses ranged from R$4,900 to R$14,500.

The distribution of applicants and vacancies across the country is uneven. In 2022, just five states (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Paraná) concentrated 56.6% of the total number of students, with 55.3% of enrollments available.

The applicant/vacancy ratio also varies depending on the public or private nature of the medical schools. Among public candidates, 65.8 candidates competed for a vacancy in 2022. In 2014, the ratio was 73.7 per vacancy. In other words, there was a decrease of 10.7% in eight years.

Among private units, the drop was more than 70%. Competition went from 31.9 candidates per vacancy in 2014 to 8.9 in 2022.