THE Leaf recently published the RUF (University Ranking Leaf), ranking the 204 Brazilian universities. Although they represent less than 10% of the country’s total 2,600 higher education institutions, universities account for more than half of the more than 10 million enrollments, according to the 2024 Higher Education Census.
With exceptions, public universities are created by acts of governments – federal or state – which maintain them. Private universities, especially those recognized by the LDB (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional) of 1996, are a kind of evolution of colleges or university centers.
A university requires considerable and regular investments to meet the academic requirements stipulated by law, such as offering undergraduate courses in broad areas of knowledge and postgraduate programs stricto sensu; carry out research and popularization; have a significant percentage of faculty with doctorates working full-time; promote internationalization, etc.
These requirements help to maintain a relative balance between the number of public and private universities, with a slight predominance of the former (56%). Of the 90 private universities, 75% are non-profit, defining themselves as faith-based or community-based. There are 23 for-profit universities (a little over 10% of the total). Over the past decade, only two universities have been created: a federal one, in 2019, and a state one, in 2021. The two most recent private universities date back to 2002; they have therefore already reached the age of majority.
This data suggests that educational companies have chosen to expand their universities, particularly with regard to distance education (distance learning) offerings, instead of creating new ones. The result is that the 23 private for-profit universities represent 52% of the country’s total university enrollment (5,420,049), according to the census already mentioned.
Based on RUF data, we divided the 204 universities into four groups, with the following results: of the total public universities (114), 40% and 25% are in the first group of the best 51 and the next group respectively; 55% of the total number of private universities (90) are distributed in the second and third quality groups; only 5 private universities, all non-profit (denominational), appear in the group of 51 best; Of the 23 private for-profit universities, 6 are ranked in the second group and the rest in the penultimate and last quality group.
Three points stand out. The first is the unequal presence of public and private universities, for-profit or not, in the quartiles; the second is the heterogeneity of private non-profit universities between the best and the worst; The third is the concentration of enrollment in the 23 private for-profit universities, already mentioned, which accompanies their concentration in the group of lower quality universities.
If, in the case of federal universities, seniority seems to be an important factor for some to climb the rankings (all federal universities in the “bottom” are less than six years old), the same cannot be said for a considerable part of state and municipal public universities and private, non-profit and for-profit universities located at the bottom of the list. Although decades old, these universities have settled into the “tails,” as Sabine Righetti put it when examining the RUF in this newspaper.
RUF data raises questions: what does it mean to be a university in Brazil? How many institutions with these characteristics do we still need? Why do public universities, even in the majority, represent a little more than a third of registrations in this segment? How can we ensure that the prerogative of academic autonomy is not solely used to develop low-quality universities?
Answering these questions involves reviewing assessment and regulatory standards and indicators, and redefining which institutions can be recognized and maintained as universities.
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