Student assistance in higher education policy in Brazil

Abstract

This article arises through the study about Student Assistance as a program that contributes to the permanence in higher education. We intend to carry out a historical survey regarding the institution of the PNAES, through Decree No. 234/2010, as well as to bring to the discussion the role of the Pro-Rectors Forum of Community and Student Affairs in order to strengthen the struggle by the students’ permanence in higher education. As a general objective of the work, we highlight the analysis of the socioeconomic and cultural profile of the students, subjects of the student assistance program, from the institution of the PNAES, and their contribution to the permanence of the students. The research dialogues with the critical-dialectical materialist perspective, resorting to research of the qualitative type, which makes use of observation and documentary research. At the end we systematised the data and analyzed through the theoreticians who study the higher education policy. The research results confirm the need for student assistance as a program that strengthens the students’ permanence, since there are students who do not have the economic conditions to remain in the public university without the support of the State. Such a residual policy is permeated by conflicts and tensions, in the face of a disparity between the reduction of resources for higher education policies in the neoliberal context and the needs of subalternized social segments.