Privatização e expansão da educação superior no Brasil: o programa do Fundo de Financiamento Estudantil no período de 2017 a 2021

Abstract

The present research aims to analyze the configuration of the expansion and privatization of Higher Education in Brazil, having as a catalyst the Student Financing Fund program and its contribution to the expansion of private commercial Higher Education offers. It is based on the understanding that the expansion policies implemented during this period, although initially presented as strategies to expand access to higher education, have also contributed to the intensification of the privatization process of this educational level. As a theoretical framework, the work uses qualitative-quantitative research and aims to understand the political, economic and social changes that influenced higher education in the country. As methodological procedures, the work uses documentary analysis, bibliographic review and statistical analysis of relative data made available by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP) and the National Education Development Fund (FNDE). Document analysis enabled a deeper understanding of how political and economic factors have impacted the current educational scenario, being strongly influenced by international and national guidelines. The bibliographic review, in turn, provided a more in-depth critical analysis of the phenomena that condition and surround the object of study. Furthermore, data analysis allowed us to investigate how the expansion and privatization of higher education take place in the Brazilian context. The study carried out revealed that the expansion of higher education in the country is not limited exclusively to a benevolent purpose of expanding access and retention of students. It is also part of capitalist logic, assuming characteristics that favor the reproduction of capital. In this context, FIES emerges as a program that, by facilitating access to higher education, at the same time, provides significant strengthening conditions for the private and mercantilist education sector, consolidating it as the main provider of this level of education. The data also indicates a significant expansion of the private sector in Brazil. This expansion was driven by the actions of FIES, which, by adopting privatist traits, played a role in the even more intense submission of higher education in the country to capitalist logic. This resulted not only in a numerical supremacy of the private sector, but also in a diminishing of the distinction between the public and private spheres, especially since part of the growth of the private sector was driven by public financial resources.