Sao Paulo –Students at the University of São Paulo (USP) reacted negatively to the bill which proposes charging tuition fees at public universities in São Paulo, was presented this Tuesday (17/9) in the Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo (Alesp). The proposal, written by state deputy Leonardo Siqueira (Novo), provides for financing through student loans, which would be repaid at the end of the course.
According to the text, higher education institutions will be responsible for determining the value of the monthly fees, and financing will be offered based on the Income Contingent Repayment (ECR) Loan model.
In other words, the amount of the installment will be proportional to the income earned – the higher the salary, the higher the contribution. Under this system, former students will start paying their debts only after completing their courses and entering the job market. Those who are unemployed or have low incomes will be exempted from payments “until their financial situation improves”.
At USPs across the state, news of the bill has spread quickly among students in the past two days.
“We started receiving questions about this on social media, in the WhatsApp groups of the courses, so this question started to get a response very quickly”, said Pedro Antônio Chiquitti, director of the Free Central Student Directory (DCE) at USP and member of Coletivo Bersama.
“The free nature of universities guarantees a minimum diversity in their composition and follows the principle of the right to education for all. The proposal to charge monthly fees only deepens the elitism of universities and limits access to education,” argued the History student.
Access to universities
The proposal aims to address “two problems common to public universities in the state of São Paulo: the low inclusion of the poorest and the high dependence on state revenues for their operation,” according to the text.
In the justification presented, the text highlights that charging tuition fees at public universities has become common practice in 20 developed countries, such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Chile, South Korea, and the United States.
“Through this initiative, we are getting closer to the best international practices, expanding access to higher education for the poorest populations and providing additional resources to public universities in the state of São Paulo,” the text reads, without specifying how access to education for the poorest populations will be ensured (see the representative’s explanation below).
For Claudia Costin, an education specialist and former global education director at the World Bank, Brazil is experiencing another moment in relation to the developed countries mentioned in the project. According to the researcher, the country needs more young people enrolled in higher education, as only 21% of Brazilians aged 25 to 34 have a college degree.
“Despite the efforts we have made to increase access to higher education, through racial quotas and for state school students, for example, I don’t think starting to charge fees is going to help anything,” the specialist said.
Regarding the access of socially vulnerable communities to public universities, Costin argues that he does not see how loans can make more people want to enter higher education, because there is a big risk, when they take out a loan, that they will not be able to pay it back later. “Right now, there are many priorities that require legislative action, and I don’t think this is one of them.”
Student Rosa Baptista, also from DCE and a member of the Academic Center of the USP School of Communication and Arts, commented that the project had received a response from university groups, subject groups and the student movement itself. Reinforcing Costin’s speech, she explained that such a measure would represent a setback in access to the university for people in socially vulnerable situations.
“We are very concerned, because if approved, the project would be a setback for public universities and in particular for USP, for example because the university has gone through a very drastic process of changing the profile of its students, albeit slowly, where black, marginal and low-income students have managed to enter the university because of quotas and through entrance exams”, he argued.
What his deputy said
When asked by the report about how this project would allow more low-income people to enter Higher Education, state deputy Leonardo Siqueira stressed that to expand places, more resources were needed, especially from the wealthiest people.
“Our project will provide more resources to universities, as is done in developed countries, and only in the richest countries. With more resources, universities can expand and add places, which will benefit the poorest groups, who will continue their education without paying,” he said.
Based on data from the Semesp Institute, the Deputy said that in 1980 the number of places in public universities was 482 thousand, and in private universities 885 thousand. In 2020, the number of vacancies in public education in Brazil was 2 million and in private education 6.5 million. “In other words, most of the expansion occurred on the private side,” he concluded.
