Lei de Cotas no ensino superior: uma análise da permanência e desempenho da coorte de integrantes em 2014 na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

The main objective of this work was to analyze the permanence and performance of the cohort of freshmen at UFRN in 2014, divided into quota holders, who used the vacancy reserve mechanism according to Law No. 12,711 / 12 (Quota Law), and not quota holders. To test the hypothesis that there is no difference regarding permanence and performance between quota students and non-quota students, a database was used containing information from 5,633 new students entering the UFRN Central Campus in 2014. The information comes from the OVEU / COMPERVE at UFRN. Propensity Score Matching was used to pair groups of quota holders and non-quota holders. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, and considering the division of students between quota students and non-quota students, an analysis was made on the sociodemographic profile of the freshmen, Survival Analysis to estimate the differentials on the permanence of students over five years, and Non-parametric test to analyze differences in performance between students in both groups. With regard to the main results, no statistically significant differences were found in the performance (p-value = 0.30) and permanence (pvalue = 0.67) of quota and non-quota participants when evaluated in general. However, considering the classification of the courses in four different groups, only the one with the highest dropout level (Group 4) showed statistically significant differences in permanence between quota and non-quota students, with advantages for the latter (p-value = 0, 05). These results partially confirm the hypothesis that there are no differences in permanence between quota holders and non-quota holders. As for performance, there was a statistically significant difference between quota students and non-quota students considering the grouping of courses with greater competition and social prestige (Group 1), with a slightly higher average in the performance score for the group of non-quota students (p-value = 0.05). Other characteristics that pointed to statistically significant differences in the measure of performance, and greater for non-quota students, were the entry into biomedical courses (p-value = 0.003) and the statement that they worked when entering university (p-value <0 , 01). These results also partially confirm the hypothesis that there are no differences in performance between quota holders and non-quota holders. In general, the study contributes to the area by pointing out well-defined sociodemographic differences between quota and non-quota students; that evasion was configured as a relevant problem for the entire analyzed cohort, but that in those courses of greater evasion, the socioeconomic origin made the most difference for permanence; that aid for permanence may have contributed decisively to the permanence of quota students; and that it cannot be said that the performance of quota students is lower than that of quota students at least for the total data set.