Recent Changes of Higher Education in Brazil

In the last decades, Brazil has been established as a new emerging world power. This process is marked by the pace of growth of its economy, especially in the first decade of the twenty-first century and by the country's greater international insertion in the scenario of globalization. Several phenomena have contributed to this condition, such as the consolidation of democratic political institutions, the existence of social movements that pushes for greater social insertion, the introduction of social inclusion and the incorporation of large contingents of the population to the consumer market. The work to be presented has the objective of highlighting certain changes that have been occurring in higher education in Brazil in the last four decades.

In this direction, certain aspects regarding the current structure of Brazilian higher education will be approached, such as: (i) late emergence of higher education in Brazil: (ii) expansion and institutional heterogeneity of the system; (iii) aspects of higher education financing in Brazil; (v) development of the national graduate system; (vi) policies of inclusion and social justice; (vii) challenges to be faced.

The paper aims to highlight that despite the recent expansion of institutions and enrollment in undergraduate courses, the higher education system remains exclusive to a significant part of the Brazilian population. It also wishes to point out that the lack of financial and administrative autonomy of federal universities constitutes a serious obstacle to enhancing higher education in the country. The work will seek to provide data on terciary education in Brazil, in order to compare to the structure and challenges of higher education systems in other BRIC countries, with the aim of creating a BRICs Network University.