The Impact of For-Profit Higher Education on Brazilian Education

• Author: Wilson Mesquita de Almeida
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211008156
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211008156

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 244, Vol. 49 No. 3, May 2022, 84–98

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211008156

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

84

The Impact of For-Profit Higher Education on

Brazilian Education

by

Wilson Mesquita de Almeida

Translated by

Luis Fierro

For-profit private higher education in Brazil emerged in the 1970s through state incen-

tives such as educational credit and tax exemptions. In its most recent configuration, the

logic of investment funds that trade on the stock exchange controls the largest institutions.

The management of investment funds inserts a new variable into the investment of finan-

cial resources. It requires reducing costs to maximize shareholder value, but this means

delivering precarious educational quality. Governed by a logic of maximum profit, for-

profit private higher education in Brazil produces extremely poor education, with the

result that most such institutions focus on simply being diploma factories for more socially

destitute students

O ensino superior privado com fins lucrativos no Brasil surgiu na década de 1970 por

meio de incentivos estatais, tais como crédito educacional e isenção de impostos. Na sua

configuração mais recente, a lógica dos fundos de investimento que negociam em bolsa

controla as maiores instituições. A gestão de fundos de investimento insere uma nova

variável na aplicação dos recursos financeiros. Requer redução de custos para maximizar

o valor para o acionista, mas isso significa a entrega de um nível educacional bastante

precário. Regido por uma lógica de lucro máximo, o ensino superior privado com fins

lucrativos no Brasil gera uma educação extremamente pobre e consequentemente a maioria

delas focam somente no fato de se tornarem fábricas de diplomas para alunos dos meios

socialmente mais desprovidos.

Keywords: For-profit higher education in Brazil, Privatization of education,

Neoliberalism, Social reproduction

According to Oliven (1993: 75) “in 1960, the total number of university stu-

dents across Brazil was 93,000. In 1970 there were 425,000, and in 1977 enroll-

ment reached 1 million.” Along with the growing demand for places there was

a modernization of this level of education in an effort to adapt to the economic

development and social change that the nation had been going through since

the end of the 1940s and that were fully expressed in the 1964 civil-military

coup. The Aeronautics Institute of Technology, influenced by the North

American university standard, had been created in 1947, bringing innovations

such as the elimination of lifelong professorships (a model hitherto dominant

Wilson Mesquita de Almeida is a professor of sociology at the Universidade Federal do ABC and

the author of ProUni e o ensino superior privado lucrativo em São Paulo (2014) and USP para todos?

(2009). Luis Fierro is a translator living in the Miami area.

1008156LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211008156Latin American PerspectivesAlmeida / FOR-PROFIT HIGHER EDUCATION IN BRAZIL

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