More than half of higher education students drop out of their courses in Brazil

Evasion

With the pandemic, the numbers of withdrawals became more evident

A survey carried out by the Semesp Institute revealed that more than 55% of students who enter colleges in Brazil drop out before completing their courses. In technology areas, such as Computer Science, Game Design and Information Systems, dropout is even higher, with 6 out of 10 students leaving courses early. Reasons for dropping out include frustration with curricula and economic and market issues.

Rodrigo Bouyer, Evaluator of the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira and partner at Somos Young, explains that the reasons are many and complex. Evasion from higher education has always existed, but with the pandemic we are experiencing, the numbers of dropouts have become more evident.

“One of the factors is the difference in the quality of delivery of education, especially those who leave high school for higher education, a good part of the students, mainly from the public network, cannot keep up with the pace of the class and drop out of the course”,

affirm.

In addition to financial issues, aggravated by the economic crisis in recent years and the reduction in financing with government help (Fies), it is difficult for colleges to maintain courses connected to the reality of companies. The very heated market, which often hires without requiring a degree (practical knowledge is enough), increases the challenge.

“Sometimes people don’t understand that even being a public higher education student, the expenses exist and are not few. Spending on transportation, food, clothes, stationery, books, among others, and people are not always able to meet these costs. It is not easy and it is not cheap to do higher education in Brazil”,

explains Bouyer.

According to data, Brasília today has the same percentage of graduates of target No. 12 of the PNE 10 years ago. “There was no evolution, but there were higher rates years ago, this means that people are dropping out of universities more, whether public or private, this is a problem and a great challenge that the country has to solve”,

explains the expert.

private education

Bouyer emphasizes that “since the private institution, that the for-profit companies essentially benefit from years of education training of someone to get the professional ready and hire, why not return a part of that also to the educational institutions for various programs that do not necessarily need to be a donation, can be effectively contracting services provided by the educational institution and thus, in some way, the private sector needs to be involved in this debate to increase professional qualification, which will be beneficial for everyone, including companies” .

And finally, the fourth and last point: the General Government, referring directly to the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, National Treasury, Congress, in short, all together thinking of ways to promote the development of higher education, whether for the resumption of FIES, this new FIES that is being announced for 2024, whether for actions to stimulate these institutions, which, by setting up a Campus in a city far away from the big centers, takes jobs, investments, entrepreneurship, innovation and generation income.

*With advisory information

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