Resumo

CHAVES, Jacqueline Cavalcanti  e  SILVEIRA, Franciene Aparecida da. Higher Education and Student Aid Policy: Rethinking University Education. Rev. Educ. e Cult. Contemp. [online]. 2018, vol.15, n.40, pp.224-250.  Epub 25-Jul-2018. ISSN 2238-1279.  https://doi.org/10.5935/2238-1279.20180055.

In recent years, Brazil’s federal government has implemented educational policies that prioritize the expansion of higher education and the restructuring of public universities. Among these measures is the Student Aid Policy. This article aims to discuss higher education through the lens of the Student Aid Policy, examining the changes and advances that it has implemented, as well as the challenges it has faced in its objectives of offering social inclusion, expanded educational offerings, and equal opportunities – all of which are seen as social rights guaranteed by Brazil’s Constitution of 1988 – to students in Brazil’s Federal Higher Education Institutions (IFES). In order to undertake this analysis, the article analyses documents, articles, and books regarding education, educational policies, and student aid, especially at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF). The article concludes that, to a large extent, educational policies have been aligned with neoliberal economic policies. It verifies that the policy under examination has systematised and offered diverse forms of aid that contribute effectively to the democratisation of public higher education. However, the policy faces many challenges such as the universalisation of aid, the guarantees of the rights of citizenship, and the improvement of the quality of life of the policy’s beneficiaries. The study also shows that, within the scope of student aid policies, there exists the potential to elaborate guidelines promoting collective actions that stimulate critical reflection, ethically concerned education, cooperation, mutual respect, equality, and social justice.

Palavras-chave : Higher education; Student aid policy; Neoliberalism; Ethical education.

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