{"id":466108,"date":"2023-01-24T16:02:48","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=466108"},"modified":"2023-01-24T16:02:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:02:48","slug":"expansion-of-higher-education-has-had-tangible-local-impacts-but-obstacles-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/expansion-of-higher-education-has-had-tangible-local-impacts-but-obstacles-remain\/","title":{"rendered":"Expansion of higher education has had tangible local impacts, but obstacles remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last two decades, the federal government has created 27 universities, 19 public higher education institutions, and dozens of branch campuses of existing institutions, many of them in minor cities throughout Brazil. Now, researchers are evaluating the impacts on economic and regional development from the outward expansion of higher education providers. Recent studies have shown that, while progress has been stuttered, these efforts have had a measurable impact on local development by helping to create knowledge and wealth.<\/p>\n

Pau dos Ferros, a town with a population of 30,000 people in Rio Grande do Norte, is a case in point. In 1976 the State University of Rio Grande do Norte (UERN) established a local campus offering programs in the humanities and social and health sciences. The town\u2019s academic community later expanded to include a federal higher education institute in 2009, and a newly built campus of the Federal Semiarid Rural University (UFERSA), in 2012. Today, the city also hosts private institutions such as Anhanguera and Faculdade Evolu\u00e7\u00e3o Alto Oeste Potiguar (FACEP), attracting students from both Rio Grande do Norte and its neighboring states of Para\u00edba and Cear\u00e1.<\/p>\n

Ronie Cleber de Souza, at the UERN Department of Economics, notes that the city and its services gradually expanded to accommodate a growing contingent of professors, staff, and students\u2014in 2018, the UERN campus had 1,156 undergraduate and 265 graduate students. The real-estate market boomed\u201410 new neighborhoods were created from 2010 to 2015\u2014while the local job market expanded with formal employment rising by a significant 102.5% from 2000 to 2010, far outstripping the number of jobs supported by higher education institutions. \u201cThe share of public-sector jobs in formal employment dropped from 57% to 34% in the period, clearly denoting a virtuous cycle of job creation that decade,\u201d says Souza, a coauthor of a survey published in Universidade e territ\u00f3rio \u2013 Ensino superior e desenvolvimento regional no Brasil do s\u00e9culo XXI<\/em> (Universities and regional development in twenty-first century Brazil), organized by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA). Launched in May, the book is a compilation of papers by researchers in different fields and institutions throughout the country, exploring how the expansion of higher education into small-town Brazil has driven local economic development and improved social welfare.<\/p>\n

The most prominent example of this is perhaps Rio Grande do Sul. From 2003 to 2015, several new federal universities and institutes, and 20 new branch campuses of existing institutions, were established in the state, many of them in cities with less than 100,000 people. A study led by economist Ana L\u00facia Tatsch at UFRGS found that, as intended, the expansion created a growing offering of undergraduate and graduate STEM programs in underdeveloped regions of the state, especially in the fields of crop science and veterinary science. \u201cThis makes sense, as agriculture is one of the state\u2019s leading industries,\u201d notes the researcher, who authored one of the 16 papers in the IPEA series.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso<\/span>\n

As one of the effects from the expansion, the number of graduate programs in Rio Grande do Sul grew from 102 to 239, while the number of research groups registered with the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) went from 1,869 to 3,601 between 2002 and 2016. According to the researchers, their data show that the branching out of higher and STEM education in the state has helped to establish a research ecosystem in areas outside major cities. The impact on productivity and innovation in the state can be measured by the number of university collaborations with industry, both locally and nationally. In 2002, 11% of 893 research groups at federal universities said they had collaborations with companies, public and private education and research institutions, government agencies, and other organizations. In 2016, 33% of 2,325 research groups said they had links to external partners.<\/p>\n

Another study showed that young institutions had proportionally more local partners. Incumbent research groups had 1,543 collaborations in 2016, 826 (53%) of them with in-state organizations and 717 (46%) across state borders. Younger institutions collaborated with 164 (73%) partners in Rio Grande do Sul and 60 (27%) in other states. Economist Iago Luiz da Silva, one of the authors of the survey, believes this can be explained by the fact that new universities were largely created for the specific purpose of promoting regional development.<\/p>\n

The survey results in Rio Grande do Sul are consistent with trends seen in other regions. \u201cCompanies seeking solutions to more complex problems will typically work with well-established, world-class research groups in major universities,\u201d says Renato Garcia of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Institute of Economics, who did not collaborate on the IPEA series\u2014Garcia has extensively researched the regional impact of higher-education institutions in Brazil. \u201cNot uncommonly, these collaborations are created by alumni who are hired to work in R&D [research and development] departments at partner companies,\u201d says Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque, an economics professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and a researcher at the Center for Regional Development and Planning (CEDEPLAR). The literature shows that \u201cthe ability that research groups have to develop skilled human resources and produce high-impact research attracts companies seeking partners to address real-world problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the leading examples of this is S\u00e3o Carlos, a city 230 kilometers from S\u00e3o Paulo. Beginning in the 1950s, the city became home to a growing number of education and research institutions, starting with the University of S\u00e3o Paulo at S\u00e3o Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP), founded in 1953, followed in the early 1970s by the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar) and two new USP units: the S\u00e3o Carlos Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the S\u00e3o Carlos Institute of Physics and Chemistry, which was later split into two separate institutions, in 1994. One year prior, EMBRAPA\u2019s Agricultural Instrumentation chapter had also located in the region. These investments turned the city into a science and technology hub that has helped to develop a large pool of skilled human resources, especially in fields such as engineering and earth sciences. A survey by the S\u00e3o Carlos Institute of Chemistry found that the city has one PhD for every 100 people, around 10 times more than the national average. Many PhDs are hired by the roughly 200 tech companies that have located in the area in recent years so they are strategically close to academic centers of excellence; some companies have even been founded by alumni.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso<\/span>\n

Another prominent example is Santa Rita do Sapuca\u00ed, in Minas Gerais, which in 1959 built the first electronics trade school in Latin America. \u201cThe institution has since trained a large contingent of electronics and telecommunications technicians, helping to address a manpower barrier to the development of the industry,\u201d notes Renato Garcia, who has researched the factors underlying the thriving electronics industry in the region. Several companies, he notes, were started by alumni. This continued with the arrival of the National Telecommunications Institute in 1965, offering higher education programs in telecommunications to develop the skills and expertise demanded by companies such as Telemig, Dentel, and Telebras.<\/p>\n

Garcia believes that the economic impacts from the recent expansion of some federal institutions would have been greater if coupled with policies to create industrial clusters that could absorb graduates in host regions. \u201cIn Rio Grande do Sul, federal universities branched out into areas with relatively well-established industrial districts that responded well to the stimulus,\u201d he notes. \u201cIn regions without a significant industrial presence, the strategy for driving innovation and regional development has been to use a bottom-up approach, starting with local skills building.\u201d Another challenge, says Garcia, has been Brazil\u2019s recent science funding crunch and its effects on the development of these institutions (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue <\/em>n\u00ba 304<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

But before advancing regional development, the primary goal in expanding public universities was to increase Brazil\u2019s offering of higher education spots. Indeed, the number of enrollments at federal higher education institutions rose from 505,000 in 2001 to 1.2 million in 2020, according to data from the An\u00edsio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP). This was one of the reasons that led the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (UNIFESP) to create new campuses in cities like Diadema, Osasco, Guarulhos, and S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 dos Campos beginning in 2004, expanding undergraduate spots by more than 1,000% in just over 15 years. In 2005 the university had five undergraduate programs at its campus in S\u00e3o Paulo City, home to its prestigious S\u00e3o Paulo School of Medicine. It now offers 52 programs with more than 13,000 students enrolled.<\/p>\n

New campuses will naturally have a positive impact on the local economy. In Cuit\u00e9, a city of 20,000 people in Brazil\u2019s northeastern state of Para\u00edba, the founding of the Federal University of Campina Grande\u2019s Center for Education and Health (CES-UFCG) in 2006 drove up the real estate market and attracted new investments, services, and residents. \u201cAt least five private institutions have since located in the city, offering primary, trade, and higher education,\u201d notes Josias de Castro Galv\u00e3o, a geographer at the Center for Exact and Natural Sciences at the Federal University of Para\u00edba (UFPB), who discusses the regional impacts from the new center in a 2020 paper published as part of a series produced by researchers at UFPB and the State University of Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\n \n \n \n <\/picture>Alexandre Affonso<\/span><\/div>
\n

These institutions were attracted by Cuit\u00e9\u2019s growing population of residents, workers, and students at the UFCG center. According to Galv\u00e3o, 84.4% of professors and technical and administrative staff at the center are originally from other regions or states. Some of them moved to the city when the center opened, while others commute on a daily basis during the academic year. \u201cAlthough they don\u2019t live in the region, they do consume goods and services there on a daily basis,\u201d he says. \u201cThey add a new layer of consumers to the region.\u201d Another effect from academic migration is that it heats up the real-estate market as students, faculty, and staff seek housing in the area. The new housing developments that have been launched in response have driven up property prices in several neighborhoods in the town.<\/p>\n

The indirect economic impacts from a newly opened higher education institution initially exceed impacts from education and research proper. But this is expected to reverse over time, creating a virtuous cycle as new research groups develop field-specific expertise and universities train skilled human resources and attract investments. This can drive innovation and the creation of new companies that will in turn attract more capital and skilled labor to the region, as was the case in S\u00e3o Carlos and Santa Rita do Sapuca\u00ed. In many places, however, this reversal has yet to occur\u2014the impact from new higher education providers has been short term and often limited to a local-market stimulus. This has been the case in Cuit\u00e9, a city that has seen its local retail flourish but is unable to retain the students graduating from CES.<\/p>\n

According to Doralice S\u00e1tyro Maia, a geographer in the Department of Geosciences at UFPB, this suggests that establishing a higher education institution in a given region will not necessarily drive development. \u201cComplementary tax, financial, and institutional policies are needed to help integrate education, research, and extension activities with the local economic and social ecosystem,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In Brazil\u2019s North, the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Par\u00e1 (UNIFESSPA), founded in June 2013, expanded the number of higher education places by 196.2%, while the number of students enrolled increased to 1,857 by 2019. The number of extension projects in smallholder settlements, schools, fishing villages, and Indian reservations in the state\u2019s southeast rose from 27 in 2017 to 77 in 2020.<\/p>\n

A survey by two researchers at UNIFESSPA\u2019s Institute for Agrarian and Regional Development Studies identified several initiatives to connect education and research to local needs, such as building biodigesters in rural settlements, mainstreaming access to public universities through prep courses delivered by UNIFESSPA faculty, and advancing digital inclusion through basic and intermediate computer courses. UNIFESSPA has also helped to train teachers to work at schools in the region. According to the authors, the vast majority (82.8%) of students who entered university from 2014 to 2019 came from public schools, many enrolling in bachelor of education programs.<\/p>\n

Books<\/strong>
\nMACEDO, F. C. et al<\/em>. (org.). Universidade e territ\u00f3rio: Ensino superior e desenvolvimento regional no Brasil do s\u00e9culo XX<\/strong>I. Bras\u00edlia: IPEA<\/strong>, 2022.
\nMAIA, D. S. and MARAFON, G. J. (orgs.). Ensino superior e desenvolvimento regional: Reconfigurando as rela\u00e7\u00f5es entre as cidades e o campo. <\/strong>Rio de Janeiro: Eduerj<\/strong>, 2020.
\nSERRA, M. et al<\/em>. (org.). Universidade e desenvolvimento regional: As bases para a inova\u00e7\u00e3o competitiva<\/strong>. Rio de Janeiro: Ideia D<\/strong>, 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The absence of a consolidation policy in the industrial sector is highlighted as one of the barriers to the economic effects that some federal institutions could bring to their local regions","protected":false},"author":346,"featured_media":466109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[256],"coauthors":[662],"class_list":["post-466108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policies-st-en","tag-public-policies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466108"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466617,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466108\/revisions\/466617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466108"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=466108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}