This chapter takes stock of outcomes in the Portuguese higher education system related to access and completion, including in the most selective programmes. It provides an overview of educational pathways of young people from lower-income backgrounds in Portugal relative to their higher-income peers. It also considers the division of students from different income backgrounds between universities and polytechnic institutions and explains differences in competition for study places across geographical districts.
Higher Education in Portugal
Policies for Access and Success
Abstract
Following a considerable increase in participation in higher education over the last two decades, Portugal has largely closed the historic gap in higher education attainment rates that existed with its peers in the European Union (EU) and the OECD. Since the democratic revolution in 1974, sustained political and stakeholder commitment, combined with a strong research community, have supported the development and implementation of a range of successful policies to promote widened access to advanced educational opportunities. The country is well placed to build on this legacy to tackle remaining inequities in a system in which – as in many other developed economies – educational attainment remains strongly correlated with socio-economic background.
This report explores how Portugal can increase access to, and completion of, higher education among students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with high academic potential, including in selective study programmes. The objective of promoting greater equity in higher education reflects a twin aim of engaging historically under-represented groups in higher education to enhance their life chances and ensuring that underlying talent and potential, rather than socio-economic background, is the primary criterion for securing a place in the most selective – and prestigious – higher education programmes in Portugal (MCTES, 2024[1]).
The policy aims of the project are widely considered to be an important issue among Portuguese stakeholders, as illustrated by responses to a stakeholder survey conducted as part of this project. While not aiming to be representative of the sector, the stakeholder survey targeted individuals working to support students’ access and progression in the education sector in Portugal. Around nine-in-ten survey respondents agreed that it is important to increase the percentage of low-income students attending higher education programmes.
This chapter first considers changes in higher education attainment in Portugal over the past decade and takes stock of current patterns of participation in higher education in terms of students’ family income levels. It subsequently explains patterns of accessing the most selective “programmes of excellence” and variations in levels of competition across geographical districts. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of programme completion rates for students from different income backgrounds in Portugal.
Despite exhibiting more inequality in access to resources, Portugal has experienced greater increases in higher education attainment for 25-34 year-olds than in other OECD jurisdictions in the past decade, with attainment rising by 12 percentage points between 2014 and 2024, compared with 7 percentage points on average across OECD member countries. However, the attainment rate for this age group has fallen in recent years, to 43% in 2024, down from a peak of 46% in 2021. As such, the observed rate remains below the EU 27 average in 2024 (44%) and the EU-level target of 45% for 2030.
Even so, lower-income students, defined as students who received support via School Social Action (Ação Social Escolar, ASE) in secondary education for the purposes of this report, are less likely than higher-income students who did not receive ASE to transition into higher education. Across Portugal, 48% of lower-income students enrol in higher education in the year following their graduation from secondary education, compared with 57% of higher-income students.
Lower-income students are less likely to enrol in the most selective programmes, requiring an entry grade of 17/20 or above, referred to as “programmes of excellence”, and more likely to enrol in the more geographically dispersed polytechnic institutes than higher-income students.
While the share of mobile students out of students enrolled in all cycles of study has increased from 25% in 2014 to 33% in 2023, the observed preference is to only move to districts where programmes are more competitive than the home district. At the same time, divergences between the supply of public study places and student demand for them mean that competition for study places is fierce in some geographical areas (notably the north and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area), which means that young people living in these areas and who have less competitive entry grades struggle to access the local public offer.
Internationally comparable data on student success indicate that completion rates in Portugal are broadly in line with the average across the OECD member countries when considering completion within the theoretical duration of the programme plus three years. However, Portugal stands out in exhibiting a higher likelihood of dropping out later on in programmes, compared with many other OECD member countries. While further analysis is needed to understand the demographic profiles of students who do not complete their programmes on time, initial evidence from Portugal suggests that lower-income students do not have higher drop-out rates than higher-income students when students enrol in similar programmes and via the same entry routes.
Even though access to higher education has widened significantly over the past decade in Portugal, socio-economic gaps in participation and attainment prevail.1 Lower-income students remain less likely than higher-income students to attend higher education programmes, and comparatively few enter and complete the most selective courses in the country.
2.2.1. Current inequalities in access to resources are greater in Portugal than on average in OECD member countries
Inequity in individuals’ opportunities to participate in higher education occurs when outcomes in education depend not only on the individual student’s talent and effort, but also on contextual factors such as parental income, parental educational attainment, or the geographical area in which the student grows up. Promoting equity in educational opportunities therefore involves addressing the role of such contextual factors in determining the opportunities that students have open to them.
The phenomenon of an inter-generational transmission of education – that is, the trend that parents with higher levels of education are more likely to have highly-educated children than parents with lower levels of education – is well-established in international research (Blanden, Doepke and Stuhler, 2023[2]; Hanushek et al., 2022[3]; Crawford, Macmillan and Vignoles, 2017[4]). For example, Collado, Ortuño-Ortín and Stuhler (2023[5]) find evidence of the transmission of educational advantage within extended families across generations in Sweden that cannot be explained by the genes inherited from parents, by considering the transmission of advantage across non-blood relatives. In France, an increment of 10 percentiles in the parental income distribution is associated with a 5.6 percentage-point increase in the proportion of students enrolling in higher education (Bonneau and Grobon, 2022[6]). Evidence from Germany even suggests that grandparents’ level of education is significant in influencing students’ access to schooling today (Braun and Stuhler, 2018[7]).
The ability of children to surpass their parents’ socio-economic status – that is, to break the inter-generational transmission of education and be upwardly socially mobile – tends to be lower in societies with greater levels of underlying inequalities. As such, different measures of underlying inequalities can provide a greater understanding of the policy context.
In Portugal, inequalities in students’ access to resources tend to be greater than on average across the OECD member countries. PISA includes information about students’ economic, social and cultural status (ESCS), and consolidates this information in a composite ESCS index. The ESCS index combines information on the highest level of parental education, the highest level of parental occupational status and home possessions as a proxy for family wealth (OECD, 2022[8]). The point difference between the mean score in the top and bottom quarters of the index indicates the level of socio-economic inequality in a country. As seen in Figure 2.1, socio-economic inequality measured using the ESCS index is greater in Portugal than across OECD member countries, and only higher in Colombia, Türkiye, and Mexico.
Difference in index point means between the top and bottom quarters of students' socio-economic status as measured by the PISA index of Economic, Social, and Cultural Status (ESCS), 2022
Note: The PISA index of socio-economic status (ESCS) is an average of three indices based on student reports: parental educational attainment (in years), parental occupational status on the “International Socio-Economic Index” (ISEI) scale, and an index of “household possessions”, derived using item-response-theory (IRT) models. Differences are statistically significant. Data for Costa Rica are missing. Countries are ranked in descending order of point difference. Because one or more PISA sampling standards were not met, caution is required when interpreting estimates from United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Latvia, Netherlands, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Denmark (see Reader’s Guide, Annexes A2 and A4, PISA 2022 Results (Volume I) (OECD, 2023[9])).
Source: Table I.B1.4.2, PISA (2023[9]), OECD.
2.2.2. Efforts to widen participation have borne fruit in the past decade
Governments in Portugal have made repeated commitments to widen participation and improve the accessibility to higher education for historically under-represented groups (Conselho Nacional de Educação, 2024[10]; Teixeira et al., 2022[11]; European Commission, 2023[12]). The Portuguese Education and Training 2020 Strategic Framework set the target of increasing the share of 30–34 year-olds with tertiary education to 40% by 2020, to align with the EU’s 2020 strategy for growth and jobs (DGES, 2009[13]).2 Subsequently, in Portugal’s national development strategy, the Portugal 2030 Programme, published in 2018, the government set the more ambitious target of increasing the share of 30-34 year-olds with tertiary attainment to 50% by 2030 in line with the Partnership Agreement between Portugal and the European Commission and the EU objectives towards a European Education Area (DGES, 2018[14]; Portugal2030[15]).
The priority placed on improving the inclusiveness of higher education in Portugal is also expressed in the National Plan against Racism and Discrimination. In 2023, the government reviewed the national access system for higher education with one of the major goals being to increase its equity and improve the participation of vulnerable and under-represented groups. Moreover, increasing the qualification and skills levels of the youth population and tackling social inequalities in, and through, education are core priorities of the “Qualifications and Skills” strand of Portugal’s EU-funded Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) (RecuperarPortugal, 2024[16]). Similarly, the National Education Council (Conselho Nacional de Educação, CNE) has argued that access to higher education based on equal opportunities is an essential instrument for the construction of a democratic society, and often a condition for personal and professional fulfilment (Conselho Nacional de Educação, 2017[17]).
Efforts to widen participation have borne fruit: tertiary attainment among 25-34 year-olds has increased more in Portugal than across the OECD member countries on average. According to OECD data, tertiary attainment in Portugal increased by 12 percentage points in the past decade, from 32% in 2014 to 43% in 2024, slightly below the EU27 average in 2024 (44%) and below the EU-level target for 2030 (45%) (Figure 2.2) (European Union, 2021[18]). This increase can be compared with a smaller increase in attainment across OECD member countries, with average attainment rates among young people rising by just 7 percentage points, from 41% to 48% between 2014 and 2024 (Figure 2.2).
While the attainment levels in Portugal have increased over the whole period 2013-2023, the country experienced a slight fall in the proportion of higher education graduates among 25-34 year-olds in recent years, down from a peak of 46% in 2021. It is possible that the policies put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, including a shift to mass online instruction in 2020 and 2021, contributed to this phenomenon, and it remains to be seen whether attainment rates will recover in 2024 and 2025.
Proportion of 25-34 year-olds with tertiary attainment, 2014 and 2024 (or latest year)
Note: Instead of 2024, data refer to 2023 for Iceland, Japan and the United States, and to 2022 for Chile. Instead of 2014, data refer to 2015 for Chile.
Source: OECD Data Explorer.
There are considerable differences in rates of educational attainment across Portugal. For instance, tertiary attainment among 25–34 year-olds in 2024 ranged from 22% in the Azores to 53% in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (Eurostat, 2025[19]). 50% of young people in cities have completed tertiary education, while 40% have done so in towns and suburbs and 31% have done so in rural areas (Eurostat, 2025[20]).3 As this report will explore, regional attainment rates are not directly related to regional transition rates between secondary education and higher education; the high attainment rates in urban areas will be influenced also by the urban concentration of labour market opportunities for graduates.
2.2.3. Transition to higher education in Portugal is still influenced by parental income
Lower-income students in Portugal tend to be less likely than their higher-income peers to enrol in higher education. Across Portugal, bespoke tables from the Portuguese Directorate-General for Statistics of Education and Science (Direção-Geral de Estatísticas da Educação e Ciência, DGEEC) 4 indicate that 48% of lower-income students, defined as those who receive School Social Action support grants (Ação Social Escolar, ASE) (see Box 2.1) in secondary education, move on to enrol in higher education in the following year.5 By comparison, a majority – 57% – of higher-income students, who do not receive ASE, transition to higher education (Figure 2.3).
It is possible to zoom in on the group of students receiving ASE financial support to see a within-group income gradient. Students in ASE eligibility bracket A, whose families have the lowest incomes, also have lower transition rates to higher education (41%) than students in ASE eligibility bracket B (52%) and in eligibility bracket C (57%), according to bespoke tables from DGEEC.
Transition rates from secondary education to higher education for students in general study orientations (Panel A) and vocational study orientations (Panel B), by access to School Social Action (ASE eligibility in brackets A, B, or C) and the district of the parental home, 2023/24
Note: Transition rates are proxied by the number of students enrolling in higher education the first time, in the first year in 2023/2024, as a proportion of secondary education in 2022/2023. Data only include students in general or vocational programmes: students are considered to be in a) general study orientations if they take part in scientific-humanistic courses; b) vocational study orientations if they take part in courses of double certification (including technological courses, vocational courses (cursos profissionais), learning courses (cursos de aprendizagem), specialised artistic courses (cursos artísticos especializados). Students in recurrent education (ensino recorrente) are excluded. Students are registered as having transitioned if they are enrolled in higher education in the year following leaving secondary education and enrolled in a preparatory undergraduate degree, undergraduate degree, short-cycle programmes (CTeSPs), preparatory integrated-master degree, or integrated master (see Box 2.3). Data refer to students who enrolled in higher education in the first year for the first time. These bespoke data were provided by special request to DGEEC and are not directly comparable with published tables. The bespoke tables use the datasets Education Statistics (EE) from 2022/2023 and Survey on the Registration of Enrolled and Graduated Higher Education Students (RAIDES) from 2023/2024 (students enrolling in the first year for the first time). This is different from the official statistics from DGEEC.
Source: Bespoke tables provided by DGEEC, based on EE 2022/23; RAIDES 2023/24.
There are differences in the types of institutions attended by students who enrol in higher education. Lower-income students are more likely to enrol in public polytechnics than higher-income students, according to bespoke tables provided by DGEEC. Out of the ASE recipients transitioning to higher education directly from secondary education in 2022/23, 46% enrolled in public polytechnic institutes, compared to just 33% of non-recipient students. The gap is largest in Beja, in the south of the country, where 65% of lower-income students enrolled in public polytechnic institutes, compared to just 47% of non-recipients of social action support, constituting an 18-percentage-point gap (Figure 2.4). A gap remains even if only students from general study orientations are considered (with 41% of ASE recipients enrolling in public polytechnics across the country, compared with 29% non-recipients). This illustrates that lower-income students tend to sort into polytechnic institutes more often than higher-income students, even in local areas where both institution types have a presence.
Proportion of secondary education graduates transitioning to higher education who enrol in public polytechnic institutes, by access to School Social Action (ASE) and the district of the parental home, 2023/24
Note: Data only include students in general or vocational programmes: students are considered to be in a) general study orientations if they take part in scientific-humanistic courses; b) vocational study orientations if they take part in courses of double certification (including technological courses, vocational courses (cursos profissionais), learning courses (cursos de aprendizagem), specialised artistic courses (cursos artísticos especializados). Students in recurrent education (ensino recorrente) are excluded. Students are registered as having transitioned if they are enrolled in higher education in the year following leaving secondary education and enrolled in a preparatory undergraduate degree, undergraduate degree, short-cycle programmes (CTeSPs), preparatory integrated-master degree, or integrated master (see Box 2.3). Data refer to students who enrolled in higher education in the first year for the first time. These bespoke data were provided by special request to DGEEC and are not directly comparable with published tables. The bespoke tables use the datasets EE from 2022/2023 and RAIDES from 2023/2024 (students enrolling in the first year for the first time). This is different from the official statistics from DGEEC.
Source: Bespoke tables provided by DGEEC, based on EE 2022/23; RAIDES 2023/2024.
School Social Action, or Ação Social Escolar (ASE), is a means-tested, state-funded benefit targeting families with children in secondary education. It aims to prevent social exclusion, reduce early school leaving, and promote educational success. Three levels of support are available depending on family income, where recipients in ASE eligibility bracket A receive the most support and recipients of ASE eligibility bracket C receive the least support. Family income brackets for ASE align with income brackets for family benefits (Abono de família para crianças e jovens) and are annually adjusted according to Social Support Index (IAS) (see Chapter 4).
In 2022/23, 27% of students in public secondary education across continental Portugal received ASE. Out of these students, 11% received ASE A, a little over 12% received ASE B and 4% received ASE C. There are differences in the share of recipients across study orientations. In general programmes, 24% received ASE in any bracket, whereas over 36% of students in vocational study orientations received ASE in any bracket.
Source: Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2023[21]); Observatório das desigualdades (Observatório das desigualdades, 2025[22]).
2.2.4. Lower-income students are less likely to access the most competitive courses
To understand the level of equity in educational opportunities, it is important to not only consider the likelihood of transitioning into higher education, but also the chance of accessing the most sought-after programmes. In Portugal, lower-income students are less likely than higher-income to access the highly competitive “programmes of excellence”. Programmes gain this epithet if all students admitted in the first admissions phase of the National Access Competition had average grades equal to or above 17 (out of 20 possible) (for more on the National Access Competition, see Box 3.1). In 2022/23, just 6% of ASE recipients who applied for higher education through the National Access Competition were placed in a programme of excellence, compared to 14% of students who did not receive ASE (Figure 2.5).
Distribution of secondary education students applying for the National Access Competition, by result obtained in the National Access Competition and by eligibility bracket for School Social Action (ASE), 2022/23
Note: An establishment/course pair is considered a programme of excellence if the entry grade of the last person placed in the first phase is equal to or greater than 17.0 points.
Source: MCTES (2024[1]), based on ENES, DGEEC.
While some of this under-representation in the most selective programmes is part of a systematic under-representation of lower-income students in higher education discussed in the following chapters, it is also part of a wider trend of poor matching between students’ grades and the relative competitiveness of the programmes they enter. Even when low-income students have the secondary education grades to enter selective higher education programmes, they tend to enter programmes that are less selective than their grades would allow (see Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion). This is important because more selective programmes are typically assumed to be of higher quality because of the characteristics of the institutions and academics providing them and the cohort effects generated by attracting multiple high-performing students to the same study group. If talented individuals from low-income backgrounds with the potential to access these programmes fail to do so, it means that they miss out on the education and career benefits associated with the programmes and the capacity of the education system to drive social mobility and broader access to opportunity is reduced.
Research from Portugal finds that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less well-matched to the programmes they enter than students from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Murphy and Silva (2024[23]) investigate the degree of match between the quality of a student – based on the performance in national entry exams of the student – and the presumed quality of the programme – based on the performance in national entry exam of students who applied and enrolled in the programme. Controlling for observable factors including entry exam grades, they find that students who are the first in their families to attend higher education match to lower-quality degrees compared to students with at least one parent who has attained some higher education. Indeed, the authors find that students who are the first in their family to attend higher education enrol in less selective programmes than they could access (undermatch) regardless of their entry exam grades (Murphy and Silva, 2024[23]).
Portugal is joined by other countries in facing issues of mismatch between the talents of under-represented students and the status of the higher education programmes they enter. For instance, Campbell et al. (2019[24]) find that students in the United Kingdom with low socio-economic status systematically “undermatch” on university programme choice. This finding holds when the authors consider quality of higher education programmes to be proxied by both the median grade in programmes and the median potential earnings of students in the programme. Campbell et al. (2022[25]) also find that the student-to-programme mismatch is greatest between the 70th and 90th percentiles of achievement.
Portugal has a tradition of providing geographically accessible higher education by ensuring that institutions are strategically located in regional centres across the country and controlling the number of study places that are available in different locations. This helps ensure that higher education programmes are offered in all districts across Portugal. The provision of higher education opportunities outside metropolitan and urban areas is an important vehicle for widened access to students who are not willing or able to move away from their local area to attend a programme. At the same time, relatively high levels of competition in the Lisbon Metropolitan area and in northern districts raise barriers to access local programmes.
2.3.1. Public polytechnics are more geographically dispersed than public universities
Ensuring that individuals in all regions have access to a higher education institution has been an explicit policy goal in Portugal since the late 1970s. Portugal has a long track record of managing a long-term expansion of higher education provision through policies designed to promote territorial cohesion with demand for higher education surging after the democratic revolution in 1974. To control quality and ensure territorial balance through the long period of expansion, Portugal established a system of numerus clausus in 1977 (MCTES, 2024[1]). This system ensures that the number of higher education study places in each programme – or institution and programme pair – is fixed annually by the government respecting the maximum limit of admissions set by the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) (although institutions retain a certain degree of freedom to limit the number of study places in case of resource constraints) (see Box 2.2).
The numerus clausus system was developed to ensure programme quality in the face of rapid expansion of higher education. The number of study places to be opened in each course at each public higher education institution is published annually to applicants by institutions via the Application Guide. In the allocation of places, institutions must follow a guidance order issued by the ministry responsible for higher education.
The ministry’s guidance order is subject to the legal criteria for the operation of institutions and for the accreditation of courses (undertaken by Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education, A3ES). It considers government objectives for the rationalisation of the national and local training offer, the resources available and allocated to the sector, and the national policy for training human resources. In some cases, it also includes special conditions for certain institutions, including certain study-place allocations for local students in the island regions.
The ministry’s guidance order also considers current unemployment levels, which are provided by the Employment Centres of the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) and hearings with the representative bodies of the higher education institutions. Higher education institutions can influence the decision by appealing to constraints related to resources, including teaching staff, facilities, equipment and financial means.
Source: DGES (2024[26]); MCTES (2024[1]); OECD (2022[27]).
The provision of higher education programmes in Portugal is split across universities and polytechnic institutes (DGES, 2024[28]) (see Box 2.3). Public provision is complemented by a private offer in areas where demand for study places is higher than the public supply. Public universities tend to be the most competitive and fill nearly all their allocated study places. In 2023/24, public universities filled 93% of their study places with students enrolling for the first time through the general access regime. Public polytechnic institutes had a slightly lower occupancy rate through the general access regime, at 80%. By contrast, private universities filled 77% of their study places while private polytechnic institutes filled just 56% with students enrolling for the first time through the general access regime (DGEEC, 2024[29]).
Private provision enrols a relatively large share of students in and around the metropolitan regions of Lisbon and Porto, as well as on the island of Madeira, which is indicative of excess student demand (Figure 2.6). In Porto, 36% of enrolled students attend private institutions, compared to 27% in Lisbon, followed by 22% in Setúbal, a municipality on the outskirts of the capital. This can be compared to 20% on average across Portugal. Madeira has a high share of students in private polytechnic institutes, suggesting that the public solutions at the university do not fully cater to student demand.
Distribution of higher education enrolment across different types of institutions, by district of enrolment, Portugal, 2023/24
Note: AR refers to Autonomous Region. Districts are ranked in descending order by the proportion of students enrolled in public institutions. Data includes students enrolled in all cycles of study.
Source: DGEEC (2023[30]), RAIDES.
Higher education in Portugal is provided through a binary system comprising universities and polytechnic institutes. Universities focus on academic disciplines, promoting research and knowledge creation. They can confer bachelor’s degrees (licenciaturas), second-cycle master’s degrees (mestrados), as well as integrated master’s degrees (mestrados integrados) and doctorate degrees (doutoramentos), following the Bologna cycles used in the European Higher Education Area.
The primary responsibility of polytechnic institutes is to provide applied programmes, which aim to train students to understand and solve concrete problems. Polytechnic institutes have traditionally provided bachelor’s and second-cycle master’s programmes but have in recent years expanded their scope. Most polytechnic institutes have now integrated short-cycle, ISCED level 5 Professional Higher Technical Course (CTeSPs) into their offer since 2014. Polytechnic institutes have been able to seek accreditation to offer doctoral programmes since 2023.
Large higher education institutions are made up of several faculties and schools that are administratively distinct from each other, with the legal status of “organic units” (unidade orgânica).
Seven public universities have one or more organic units within their overarching structure that offer polytechnic programmes. This has happened notably where there is no public polytechnic institute nearby, making the public university the main local provider of professional higher education courses. For instance, this is the case for the University of the Azores, the University of Madeira and the University of Algarve.
Source: OECD (2022[27]); Diário da República (2023[31])
2.3.2. The level of competition for places differs across geographies
While most higher education students in Portugal tend to live in their parental home while attending higher education, the proportion of mobile students has increased in recent years. District-level aggregate data indicate that students tend to apply to districts where the average minimum acceptance grades of programmes offered in the district are higher than in their parental region. It is good that students who have not found a suitable match in their local area are seeking a better match in a different region, but this trend might put additional pressure on higher education institutions in high-demand areas.
Increasing numbers of students choose to study away from the parental home
As noted, the majority of students in Portugal remain in their parental home while studying but increasing numbers of students who are enrolled in higher education institutions are registered as mobile (or “displaced” in the terms used in Portugal) students. In 2023, 33% of all students enrolled in all cycles of study (excluding only students enrolled in credit mobility programmes, e.g. exchange students) were considered mobile, up from 25% in 2014.
Data from applications in the first phase of the National Access Competition can provide an indication of the districts where students are willing to relocate to and from. As shown in Figure 2.7, the share of students in Portugal applying to a district outside their own was 37% in 2023, albeit with considerable regional variation. The district with the highest proportion of applicants seeking to be accepted in a district other than their own was Guarda, with 88% of students applying for programmes in other districts in the first preference. This can be compared with just 13% of students based in Lisbon applying elsewhere in their first preference.
The majority of students applying to programmes in a district outside their home district as a first preference in the National Access Competition apply to programmes in districts where the average minimum acceptance grade is higher than in their home district (Figure 2.7). This could suggest that students tend to be willing to move if they can attend more prestigious programmes than they could if they stayed in their home district. Aveiro stands out in this regard, with a large share of students applying outside of their home districts chose a programme in Coimbra, which has a lower overall ranking in terms of minimum grades, as a first preference.
A preference for students to move primarily if they are able to access a more selective programme than they could access in their local district could help explain the considerable geographical differences in the proportion of students who seek to move from their local area. For example, institutions in Guarda, Santarém and Beja offer programmes with relatively low average minimum grades. Figure 2.7 indicates that a majority of students whose parents live in these locations apply to programmes outside of the district. Conversely, applicants in districts with the programmes that have the highest average minimum grades – Porto and Lisbon – are among the least likely to select a programme outside of their own district as their first preference.
Proportion of students by the district they apply to in their first preference in the National Access Competition and the relative rank of minimum grades of programmes offered in the district they applied to, 2023
Note: AR refers to Autonomous Region. Mobility data do not distinguish between Terceira and São Miguel within AR Azores. The rank is showed in parentheses following the district name. The rank of average minimum grade in the district refers to the rank from highest to lowest of average grade of the last-placed students in the first phase of the National Access Competition in higher education programmes offered in the district. The average is weighted by the number of students in the programme and excludes programmes without any placement in the first phase.
Source: Distrito/GAES de candidatura e 1ª opção vs. distrito de colocação (2023), DGES (2023[32]); Vagas, colocados e classificação do último colocado: 1.ª Fase 2023, DGEEC (2023[33]).
Some districts in Portugal lack public options for students with lower grades
If more students are able to move out of the parental home to study, they are able to consider a greater number of higher education programmes, which in turn could help improve the match between student ability and motivations with the programme attended. From the point of view of institutions, it may create new recruitment bases and opportunities for institutions to provide a targeted offer or specialist programmes. At the same time, mobile students could create additional demand pressures in certain geographical areas.
This could be a challenge in Portugal, where the number of local study places do not always correspond with the number of local secondary education graduates, even before mobile applicants are factored in (Figure 2.8) (see also Fernandes et al. (2022[34]) and Lourenço and Sá (2019[35])). In most districts, there are more young people leaving secondary education than there are higher education study places. However, in Bragança, Castelo Branco and Coimbra, the number of study places is greater than the number of students leaving secondary education. By comparison, in districts like Setúbal and Santarém, the number of places available to local candidates is particularly small.
Demand for study places is particularly high in the north and in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon. As Figure 2.8 shows, the average grades of the last-placed student in the first phase of the National Access Competition were highest in programmes in Porto, Lisbon and Braga. This indicates particularly high demand for study places in these locations. These are also the districts with the highest share of highly competitive programmes. In Porto, 19% of programmes required a grade of 17 points or more for access in the first phase of the National Access Competition in 2023. The shares of highly competitive programmes were also high in Braga (11%) and Lisbon (10%), compared with the share of highly competitive programmes across Portugal (6%) (DGEEC, 2023[33]).
Study places in public higher education institutions in 2023/24 per local secondary education graduate in 2022/23, by district, Portugal
Note: Study places refer places allocated to each programme in the first phase of admissions through the National Access Competition. Average minimum grade refers to the grade of the last-placed students in the first phase of the National Access Competition in higher education programmes offered in each district. The average is weighted by the number of students in each programme and excludes programmes without any placement in the first phase.
Source: DGEEC (2024[36]), Table 4, Vagas e inscritos pela 1.ª vez no Ensino Superior – 2023/2024: DGEEC, secondary education graduates, bespoke tables; DGEEC, RAIDES 2023/24; DGEEC (2023[33]), Vagas, colocados e classificação do último colocado: 1.ª Fase 2023.
Widening participation rates mean that more diverse groups from historically under-represented populations increasingly attend higher education. This makes it even more pertinent to consider student completion rates, in order to assess whether the educational offering and related support services need to be adapted to cater to the more diverse student body.
2.4.1. Completion rates in Portugal are broadly in line with the average across the OECD member countries
On average, completion rates in Portugal are similar to those across OECD member countries when it comes to completing higher education programmes within their theoretical duration. Figure 2.9 shows that 38% of full-time bachelor’s students in Portugal graduate from a higher education programme of the same level and in the timeframe of the theoretical duration of the programme they had initially enrolled in. This is in line with the average completion rate seen across OECD member countries with equivalent data (38%).
However, when looking at completion rates beyond the theoretical duration of the programme (an additional three years), completion rates in Portugal tend to be higher than the average of OECD member countries. By the theoretical duration of the programme plus three years, 72% of students who initially enrolled had completed their programmes in Portugal, compared with 65% across the OECD member countries (Figure 2.9).
Completion rates of full-time students who entered a bachelor’s programme (or equivalent), by the end of the theoretical duration of the programme and by the end of the theoretical duration plus three years, true cohort data only (2020)
Note: The year of reference for the data (2020) corresponds to the graduation year three years after the theoretical end of the programme. The reference year for the entrance cohort changes depending on the duration of programmes. Data refer only to programmes with a theoretical duration of three, four or five years in Australia. Only programmes with a theoretical duration of three or four years are included for the United Kingdom. Data are provided for the theoretical duration plus one year in Canada and plus two years in the United States (not three years). Data are provided for the theoretical duration plus one semester (not the theoretical duration) in Sweden. Instead of 2020, data refers to 2019 in Canada and the Netherlands; and 2017 in the United States. Data on bachelor's level or equivalent programmes in Spain refer to higher education provided in universities only. For the French Community in Belgium, data refer only to the hautes écoles and the écoles des arts, representing about 60% of entrants to bachelor's or equivalent programmes. Countries and other participants are ranked in descending order of the share of students who graduated by the theoretical duration plus three years. See Annex 3, Education at a Glance 2022 for notes.
Source: OECD (2022[37]), Table B5.1, Education at a Glance.
International comparisons of completion rates can be difficult to interpret. Completion rates are affected by a range of factors that inherently depend on the system in place, such as the competitiveness of the access system, the flexibility within the system, and the incentives students face to finish a programme, for instance related to student finance constraints and labour market opportunities upon completion. For example, completion rates are relatively high in the United Kingdom, where higher education is highly selective, and programmes are comparably rigid with limited opportunities for students to take up part-time studies or re-take exams several times. When programmes are more flexible, for example as is the case in the Netherlands and to some extent in Portugal, completion rate tend to be slightly lower, particularly when considering completion rates within the theoretical duration of a programme.
2.4.2. Completion rates tend to be higher in more selective programmes in Portugal
Progression and completion rates are influenced by the competitiveness of programmes, as selection processes aim to identify students who have the greatest chances to thrive in the programme. The influence of selection processes on the completion rates of higher education programmes in Portugal can be observed in the comparison between the most selective programmes, the so-called “programmes of excellence”, and programmes in private institutions where the competition for study places tends to be lower (Figure 2.10).
Figure 2.10 illustrates that the completion rates are broadly similar for students across different income groups, within a given programme type. If anything, lower-income students are slightly more likely to complete their programmes than higher-income students. For example, for students in the selective programmes of excellence, 73% of students from ASE eligibility bracket A completed their programme, which is in line with the proportion of students from ASE eligibility bracket B (75%) and higher-income students (71%). Similarly, across other programmes accessed through the National Access Competition, the completion rate for students in ASE eligibility bracket was 65%, which is slightly lower than the completion rate for students from ASE eligibility bracket B (69%), and a little higher than the completion rate for other, higher-income students (58%).
Proportion of students who graduate from their studies by 2021/22, by School Social Action eligibility bracket and higher education programme type (2018 cohort)
Note: Completion rates refer to the percentage of student entrants in 2018/19 who theoretically could have finished their programmes in 2021/22 (theoretical duration plus one year for a bachelor’s degree).
Source: Bespoke tables from DGEEC, Prosseguimento de estudos no Ensino Superior 2015/16 a 2021/22.
Selectivity can also be seen to influence completion rates when considering different forms of entry to programmes. Figure 2.11 shows that completion rates tend to be higher for students who enter through the general access regime and lowest among mature students (see Chapter 3 for more on the admissions system). Considering students in the lowest-income group (ASE recipient in eligibility bracket A), 65% of entrants via the general access regime had graduated by 2021/22, compared to 54% of entrants via CTeSPs, 49% of entrants from another course or institution, and 37% of entrants via the route for mature students (age over 23).
Proportion of students who graduated from their studies by 2021/22, by School Social Action eligibility bracket and access regime (2018 cohort)
Note: Completion rates refer to the percentage of student entrants in 2018/19 who theoretically could have finished their programmes in 2021/22 (theoretical duration plus one year for a bachelor’s degree).
Source: Bespoke tables from DGEEC, Prosseguimento de estudos no Ensino Superior 2015/16 a 2021/22.
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← 1. This report investigates the conditions and opportunities of socio-economically disadvantaged students. In existing research, socio-economic disadvantage is typically considered by using proxy indicators such as data on family income and the level of educational achievement of parents. Income and level of education are highly correlated and are both appropriate proxies for indicating the socio-economic status of a family or an individual. This report uses both income and level of education as indicators of socio-economic status, depending on the data and research available.
← 2. The terms “tertiary education” and “higher education” are used interchangeably throughout the report.
← 3. The degree of urbanisation classifies local administrative units as cities, towns and suburbs or rural areas based on a combination of geographical contiguity and population density, measured by minimum population thresholds applied to 1 km² population grid cells. Each local administrative unit belongs exclusively to one of these three classes (Eurostat[38]).
← 4. The bespoke tables from DGEEC are not directly comparable with the official data from DGEEC. The bespoke tables use the datasets Education Statistics (EE) from 2022/2023 and Survey on the Registration of Enrolled and Graduated Higher Education Students (RAIDES) from 2023/2024 (students enrolling in the first year for the first time). This is different from the official statistics from DGEEC. In the bespoke tables from DGEEC, students are considered to be in a) general study orientation if they take part in scientific-humanistic courses; b) vocational study orientation if they take part in courses of double certification (including technological courses, vocational courses (cursos profissionais), learning courses (cursos de aprendizagem), specialised artistic courses (cursos artísticos especializados); and c) in other study orientations if they take part in courses targeted to adults. Students in recurrent education (ensino recorrente) are excluded. This is different from the official statistics from DGEEC, where students are considered to be in a) vocational programmes only if they take part in vocational courses (cursos profissionais); and b) in other study orientations if they take part in courses with specific plans (cursos com planos próprios); and specialised artistic courses (cursos artísticos especializados).
← 5. This report typically considers students to belong to lower-income families if they receive School Social Action (ASE) in secondary education. Correspondingly, the report will consider students to belong to higher-income families if they do not receive ASE. Using these proxies, it is possible to consider differences in enrolment by family income despite the lack of direct information about family income in educational statistics.