This chapter reviews government-funded direct financial support such as grants and housing support, and indirect financial support including student housing and meals, for higher education students. It investigates the adequacy of recent government efforts to expand the eligibility to state-funded study grants and grant supplements available to mobile students, considering both the level of grants and challenges with the implementation of eligibility criteria. The chapter then considers the resources that higher education institutions receive as a contribution towards the provision of indirect financial support to students. The chapter finally considers implications for policy.
Higher Education in Portugal
Policies for Access and Success
Abstract
The upfront cost of participating in higher education, including tuition fees, transport, food and housing, along with the opportunity cost of foregoing an income from paid work, are important considerations for students from lower-income families, regardless of their sufficient academic ability to be successful. In some cases, students and their families might also think about the financial trade-offs where the upfront cost is offset by future reward in terms of obtaining a dream job, personal satisfaction, or gaining high returns on the labour market. In these cases, the decision to participate in higher education is influenced by knowledge and beliefs about opportunities.
In Portugal, the financial support system includes universally subsidised tuition fees in public higher education institutions, subsidised transport and canteens for students and means-tested study grants, family benefits, and housing support. The direct and indirect financial support to students in higher education is distributed primarily by Social Action Services (Serviço de Ação Social, SAS) in higher education institutions.
This chapter first considers the adequacy of the current financial support system for students living with their parents and the special provisions for mobile students. Subsequently, it investigates challenges related to the administration of grants and the implementation of allocation criteria. Finally, it reiterates the important role played by institutions in the provision of indirect financial support and non-financial services, and highlights discrepancies in the allocation of the core operating grant.
Key findings
Direct and indirect financial student support is important to increase opportunities for students to participate in higher education. Portugal has a solid foundation of direct and indirect financial supports to students, including substantially subsidised tuition fees, housing, meals and the provision of social support services (in public institutions). These universal policies are combined with means-tested support in the form of study grants and extra support for mobile students.
Much of the means-tested support relies on eligibility to the study grant, and it is promising that recent government efforts have extended the eligibility criteria of the study grant to more students. However, it has resulted in students from a wide range of income backgrounds receiving public student grants at the minimum level, which primarily aim to cover students’ tuition fees.
This conception of the role of grants is likely misaligned with students’ real needs given recent reductions in fees and concomitant increases in living costs. The government could consider increasing the grant contribution to include living costs for targeted low-income groups. Even with a well-established grant system, students can experience credit constraints when it comes to paying for living costs while studying. This applies particularly to mobile students. It could therefore be valuable to investigate the potential role of a developed state-guaranteed loan to address credit constraints during studies, as a complement to the grant system.
While students are still more likely to study in their local area, the proportion of mobile students has risen in recent years, putting pressure on support for mobile students. The government has taken action to increase the financial support for low-income mobile students, notably by investing in the stock of student accommodation, but more could be done to address the gaps in provision in targeted geographical areas. The government has also expanded support for housing costs through the housing supplement available to mobile students who have not been allocated a place in subsidised student residences, by widening eligibility and increasing the level of support available.
However, complex criteria and applicant evaluation system for the study grant and the housing supplement make case management time-consuming and the final level of grants unpredictable. In part, this is because the grant eligibility criteria in higher education differ from the eligibility criteria for the School Social Action (ASE) grants available in secondary education, on which expectations and preliminary allocations through automatic registrations are based. The housing supplement relies on study grant status but also requires formal receipts of payment in a highly informal private rental market, compounding challenges to access support.
Finally, variations in the funding that institutions allocate to social student support services from their budgets can contribute to differences in the quality of these services across institutions. The re-institution of a funding formula for core funding to institutions provides an opportunity for the government to monitor and, if needed, provide guidance to institutions on funding allocations to social support services in future. This can help ensure that vulnerable students receive equitable non-financial support across the country.
Policy recommendations
1. Revise the formula for calculating the means-tested grant with the aim of making an explicit contribution to tuition fees and an explicit contribution to living costs and consider the possibility of increasing the generosity of living cost contributions to the lower-income and mobile grant recipients.
2. Explore the possibility of introducing a state-guaranteed living cost loan to students where the state and students jointly contribute to the portion of necessary living costs during studying that are not covered by the grant, ensuring cross-party, long-term commitment and attention to address culturally important concerns related to taking on loans.
3. Continue to improve the accessibility of affordable student housing options through targeted investment and collaborations with regulated private providers.
4. Revise the eligibility criteria for the means-tested grant with the aim of ensuring that the grant system is implementable in a predictable, fair and effective manner.
5. Revise the eligibility criteria for the housing supplement with the aim of ensuring that the system is implementable in a predictable, fair and effective manner.
6. Commission an analysis of the factors that explain variations in the per-student levels of investment in student social action services between public higher education institutions.
Like many other OECD member countries, Portugal combines state-subsidised tuition fees with further direct financial support in the form of means-tested grants for the lowest-income families to pay the educational expenses and living costs remaining after universal subsidies have been applied. Despite this good foundation for student support, challenges related to financial barriers to participation in higher education remain.
4.2.1. Portugal offers generous tuition fees subsidies to students enrolled in the public sector
The government uses a range of tools to provide direct and indirect financial support to students, including subsidised tuition fees, grants and subsidised student housing (Box 4.1). The following sections will consider the key elements of the government’s financial support system and discuss opportunities for further strengthening the system.
The Portuguese government subsidises tuition fees in the public sector, which enrolled 80% of students in 2023/24 (see Chapter 2). Since 2020, the government has fixed the maximum tuition fee that higher education institutions in the public sector can legally charge Portuguese and European Union (EU) students via the annual state budget. The maximum legal fee has been kept constant in nominal terms since 2021. This maximum legal fee applies for short-cycle Professional Higher Technical Courses (CTeSPs), bachelor’s degrees, integrated master’s degrees and second-cycle master’s degrees required to access regulated professions. This policy ensures that tuition fees in the public sector remain at a level at which they constitute a relatively small part of the overall costs associated with attending higher education in Portugal.
Lowering tuition fees has been a government objective in recent years. The government in Portugal reduced tuition fees for first-cycle bachelor’s degrees in the public sector, from EUR 1 063 a year in 2018/19 to EUR 697 a year in 2020/21, remaining at that nominal level until 2024/25. This means that in real terms, tuition fees in 2024/25 are below levels previously seen in 2003/04 (Figure 4.1). Compared with other countries where tuition fees exist, the direct cost of studying in Portugal is modest. Portugal is similar to a cluster of European countries – including for instance Austria, Belgium, France, and Italy – with low public sector tuition fees (Teixeira et al., 2022[1]; Eurydice, 2022[2]; OECD, 2023[3]).
Real and nominal maximum regulated annual tuition fees in public higher education institutions, Portugal, 1997/98- 2024/25
Private institutions are able to freely set tuition fees throughout all their study cycles. This means that fees are generally higher in private institutions than in public institutions in Portugal (Figure 4.2). While attending a private institution can therefore push up the costs of studying for students, the availability of private sector alternatives in the home district has been shown to reduce the likelihood of enrolment in a higher education institution in another district in Portugal (Lourenço et al., 2020[8]). As such, private provision fills some of the gap in the market in offering study places in locations where competition for places in the public system is highly competitive, where students with slightly lower grades would otherwise be excluded or need to relocate. The higher tuition fees in private provision nevertheless create another barrier for students from lower-income families if they are not able or willing to move to another district to attend lower-cost, public higher education.
Average annual (estimated) tuition fees for bachelor’s degrees in private universities and polytechnic institutes, by district, Portugal
Note: Tuition fees are established by each private higher education institution, annually, and by course, cycle and diploma in the case of CTeSPs. These data detail approximate information only. The information was collected from student requests of grants from social support. The sample includes minimum and maximum values for a first-year cycle, CTeSPs, and courses with a minimum of 60 ECTS. This information was subsequently cross-referenced with data from higher education institution units and courses. The data refer to the average tuition fee for each programme between the minimum and maximum registered tuition fee for a first-cycle degree, and the tuition fee shown in the chart is the average tuition fee across schools in institutions for which data exist in each district.
Source: Bespoke tables from the Portuguese Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES).
Tuition fees are regulated by law for the first and second cycles of studies in the public sector and have been kept constant in nominal terms since 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
State-funded higher education study grants, or bolsas de estudo, are means-tested, state-funded payments to students enrolled in higher education programmes. The grant is awarded for a full academic year. The eligibility criteria are set by the Ministry and are distinct from those used for the allocation of family benefits and School Social Action grants in secondary education.
Subsidised student housing in residences is available for mobile higher education students at prices that are fixed below market rates. Study grant recipients in subsidised student housing receive a housing supplement making this form of accommodation free of charge.
Students who apply for, but are not allocated, a room in residences can be eligible for a means-tested housing supplement to contribute to rent in the private market.
The “Mais Superior” programme aims to support higher education enrolment in areas of Portugal where there is currently lower demand. It targets low-income students who enrol in a target institution in a NUTS III region (small geographical units) different from the one of their parental home.
Family benefits, or the “Abono de família para crianças e jovens”, is a means-tested, state-funded benefit targeting families with low incomes with the aim to alleviate financial difficulties experienced by children and students up to the age of 24. Parents continue to be eligible for family benefits for students in higher education, but not for adult children who work.
There are several tax credits available to parents up to different caps for different spending categories. These include tax credits for education and training costs, such as housing costs for mobile students, general family expenses and public transport costs.
Loans for higher education students have been suspended since 2015. However, in 2018, the EU-funded Human Capital Operational Programme (POCH), the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education, and the Mutual Counter-Guarantee Fund (FCGM) opened a credit line for higher education students with mutual guarantee, which supplies loans to a small number of students.
Merit-based scholarships are state-funded monetary awards given to academically exceptional higher education students in the year following their achievements.
Municipality-funded scholarships to higher education students are available in some municipalities. These can have different values and eligibility criteria, including means-tested elements. Municipality-funded scholarships will typically count towards the total family income as calculated for the state-funded scholarships.
Institution-funded discounts and scholarships. Some (private) institutions provide discounted tuition fees to their higher education students on an ad hoc basis.
Source: Diário da República (2003[9]); Diário da República (2009[10]); Diário da República (2023[11]); Diário da República (2021[12]); Diário da República (2023[13]); Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2023[14]); ePortugal (2024[15]); and IGeFE (2018[16]).
However, supporting day-to-day and educational expenses – and the opportunity cost of missing out on potential labour market earnings for young people – is an important challenge for lower-income students and their families when it comes to pursuing higher education. During focus groups and stakeholder interviews held within the scope of this project, participants repeatedly emphasised the importance of families’ financial challenges. Moreover, “Not being able to pay for living costs while studying” is the option most frequently identified by the project stakeholder survey participants when they were asked to rate the importance of different barriers to pursuing higher education for lower-income students. The other two most important factors identified by project stakeholder survey participants also involve financial barriers: not being able to commute or move and not accessing enough or any financial support (Figure 4.3).
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the following factors are barriers to participation in higher education for low-income students with whom you work?
Note: Only includes valid responses i.e. respondents completing the project stakeholder survey to the last page. N=2 062. The sample of this project stakeholder survey includes stakeholders in the education and higher education system. It is not necessarily representative.
Source: TSI Project Stakeholder survey, 2024.
4.2.2. Means-tested student grants aim to contribute to living costs for the lowest-income students and cover tuition fees at the minimum level
Subsidising tuition fees in public higher education institutions is a form of indirect financial support that covers a large majority of students by applying equally across institutions in the public sector. The government couples this quasi-universal subsidy with further direct financial support targeted to lower-income students in the form of means-tested study grants (Box 4.1). Portugal has a long-established system of student grants to students enrolled in public and private institutions, and recent annual adjustments have focused on expanding the eligibility criteria to include a greater number of students.
Overall, the financial support system in Portugal is well integrated into the system and provides a good foundation for students. Research from Portugal suggests that students receiving grants are less likely to drop out of their programme after the first year of studies and more likely to complete the credits necessary to continue receiving the grant compared with students with similar incomes who did not receive grants when controlling for student and programme characteristics. Similarly, receiving a grant can lead to an increased probability of graduating on time, with stronger effects among students who receive the grant for two or three years, compared to those who only receive it for one year (Guthmuller and Meroni, 2022[17]). International research from France and Germany also finds that a boost to the grant level to which students have access can help increase higher education enrolment (Box 4.2).
There may still be ways for Portugal to build on and improve the current grant system, particularly since research finds that student financial support only has a significant effect on enrolment when it provides support beyond simply covering tuition fees (Herbaut and Geven, 2020[18]). Although receiving the minimum grant allows students to cover the subsidised tuition fee and is helpful for students, it does little to alleviate concerns about living costs. The economic burden of living costs in relation to the value of the grants were highlighted by project stakeholder survey participants when asked to identify the greatest barrier to participation in higher education for lower-income students. One participant explains that: “the grant cannot support the full payment of the student's expenses (rent, household expenses, food, school expenses and transport, among others)".
Eligibility to student grants have been extended at the minimum level where grants aim to cover public sector tuition fees while the level has been held constant
The study grant in Portugal has two purposes. First, it aims to cover tuition fees at the level of the maximum tuition fee chargeable in public institutions (flat part of the line in Figure 4.4). Second, it aims to contribute to living cost expenses for students from the lowest-income families (downward-sloping part of the line in Figure 4.4).
Recent government efforts have focused on expanding the eligibility criteria to provide the minimum grant level to a greater number of students. As such, the maximum per capita income that a family can have while still receiving the study grant has increased from 14 times the Social Support Index (IAS) plus the value of the public sector maximum tuition fee in 2012 to 23 times IAS in 2024 (with changes made to the criteria in 2017/18, 2020/21 and 2023/24). In real terms, this has shifted the maximum family per capita income to be eligible for a grant from EUR 8 365 in 2012 to EUR 11 713 in 2024. Figure 4.4 illustrates the expansion in the eligibility criteria as the shift from the orange line – representing the value and coverage of the grant in 2012 – to the blue line – representing the situation in 2024.
Expected real value of the annual grant and tuition fee for Portuguese grant recipients, by real annual per capita family income, 2012 and 2024
Note: Real prices are shown in 2024 prices. The model assumes that the maximum legal tuition fee is paid and that all conditions other than family income are fulfilled, including, but not limited to, conditions related to citizenship, movable assets, course choice and credits completed. The reference student grant is calculated as 11 times the IAS plus the maximum legal tuition fee in both 2024 and 2012. The maximum family income is calculated as the IAS multiplied by 23 times in 2024 and the IAS multiplied by 14 plus the tuition fee in 2012. The model does not include supplements.
Source: DGAEP (2023[19]); OECD (2025[6]); Diário da República (2012[20]); and Diário da República (2024[21]).
While the government has gradually increased the maximum annual family per capita income allowed while receiving the grant, it has held the reference grant, or the maximum possible grant, constant. As illustrated in Figure 4.4, the reference grant determines the grant level that is allocated to living expenses for the lowest-income families. For these families, the annual student grant is calculated as the reference grant subtracted by the family per capita income, which is illustrated as the linearly downward-sloping parts of the blue and orange lines in Figure 4.4.
The reference grant has remained at 11 times the IAS value plus the maximum legal public sector fee between 2012 (EUR 6 842) and 2024 (EUR 6 299) (in 2024 prices). As such, the level of grant contribution to living costs, as well as the cut-off family per capita income where students start receiving only the minimum grant level (EUR 5 428), have remained largely unchanged (Figure 4.4).
The minimum grant level now applies to students within a wide range of family per capita incomes ranging from around EUR 5 428 per year or around EUR 11 713 per year (Figure 4.4). It could therefore be argued that any further expansions to the grant system could consider increasing the portion allocated to living cost expenses.
4.2.3. A potential avenue for further development of the study grant is to strengthen the role of financial support for living costs while studying
Previous governments in Portugal have recognised the value in providing a separate contribution towards living costs. In 2018, the minimum grant was increased from simply being equal to the maximum legal tuition fee in the public sector to 125% of the maximum fee. However, under these rules, grant recipients end up with less government support when the legal maximum tuition fee is reduced. This is because the value of the base student grants left over after tuition is paid – that is, the 25% top-up – shrinks when the tuition fee falls.
Portugal could consider whether the eligibility for living cost contributions should be expanded
It could be useful to revise the formula for calculating the means-tested grant with the aim of making one explicit contribution to tuition fees and another explicit contribution to living costs, thereby creating a separate “living cost allowance”. This would allow the government to consider the possibility of adjusting the eligibility for, and generosity of, the “living cost allowance” independently from the minimum study grant (which primarily reimburses the tuition fee). The “living cost allowance” could, for example, specifically target lower-income and mobile students. The aim of such an exercise should be to make the system more predictable for prospective students. International examples that could be drawn on include, for instance, the approaches used for the grant systems in France and Germany (Fack and Grenet, 2015[22]; Steiner and Wrohlich, 2012[23]) (Box 4.2).
Going further, the government could consider the suitability of level of and eligibility for the living cost allowance. In 2024, students start receiving income-dependent living-cost contributions at an annual per capita income of EUR 5 428 (allocated according to the downward-sloping line in Figure 4.4). Given that this per capita income is roughly in line with the per capita income of a family of four where the parents are working full-time at the minimum wage,1 there may be scope to reconsider whether the level and eligibility for living cost allowances could be made more generous (keeping in mind that there are further support for some mobile students, as discussed below).
Given that the coverage of student grants has been extended to students with higher family incomes, it would be reasonable to argue for slight increases in the tuition fees. While an end to any ambition to further reduce tuition fees could appear unfair to lower-income families, it would in fact be a progressive policy if the study grant allocation is well-targeted to lower-income students. It should be noted that this argument rests on an effective and timely allocation of the study grant, ensuring that the study grant and the housing supplement effectively reach their target groups.
The French means-tested student financial support scheme, “Bourses sur critères sociaux” (BCS), provides means-tested support to higher education students who start studying before the age of 28. The level of support is dependent on parental income, whether the student has children and the distance to the study location from the parental home. There are eight levels of support grants (provided on top of the heavily subsidised tuition fees), from EUR 1 454 to EUR 6 335 per year for the 10-month study period (Government of France[24]). Researchers found that the top bracket covered approximately 90% of the eligible student’s average living expenses in France in 2010 (Fack and Grenet, 2015[22]).
Using the discontinuities in the eligibility criteria and data from 2008 and 2009, research finds that a fee-waiver had small positive but statistically insignificant effects on enrolments, but that an additional grant of EUR 1 500 per year on top of the fee-waiver increased enrolments by 4.9 percentage points in the first year of undergraduate programmes and 3.9 points in the following year. EUR 1 500 (in 2011 euros) was estimated to cover a third of the average living expenses of eligible students who live away from home in 2010 (Fack and Grenet, 2015[22]).
The German federal student financial assistance scheme, based on the Federal Training Support Act, the “Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz” (BAföG) provides means-tested grants and interest-free loans to students in Germany. At the time of writing, the maximum allocation is EUR 934 per month, where half of the sum is provided as a grant and half as a loan. Using data from 1999-2005, when the BAföG covered around 20-25% of the student population, Steiner and Wrohlich (2012[23]) find that an increase of EUR 1 000 in student assistance from BAföG per year increased enrolment rates by 1.5% on average.
There are possible benefits of a state-guaranteed student loan system
Some OECD jurisdictions offer subsidised student loans as a complement to non-repayable student grants. In Portugal, the law currently permits student loans. In 2018, the EU-funded Human Capital Operational Program (POCH), the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES), and the Mutual Counter-Guarantee Fund (FCGM) opened a credit line for higher education students with mutual guarantee, which provides loans to a small number of students.
The government could go further to improve the conditions of the loan in order to make it more accessible. It could explore the possibility of introducing a state-guaranteed living cost loan to students with income-contingencies built into the repayment conditions. The aim of a developed loan system could be that the state and students jointly finance the portion of living costs that are not covered by the study grant.
Stakeholders highlight in project interviews that student loans have been tested in Portugal before. However, the unfavourable repayment conditions might have deterred students. Stakeholders also point towards a cultural aversion to loans as an important part of the reason for low take-up of loans in the past. Some reluctance to take on loans is to be expected, particularly in the early years after implementation, due to the large sums of money involved and a lack of certainty about the long-term stability of the system.
Therefore, it is particularly relevant that any introduction of a student loan in Portugal is planned as a part of a long-term strategy, with cross-party agreement and ear-marked long-term government funding from the national budget. Preferably, realistic options for a loan system should go through rigorous stakeholder consultations, including with students and their families, to understand concerns and what kind of repayment conditions would be acceptable.
Costed options for stakeholder consultations could draw inspiration from the Income Share Agreement loans from the José Neves Foundation, which can be considered as a starting point for understanding user experience of student loans in Portugal, as well as from relevant international examples. For example, Lithuania operates private bank-facilitated loans with a repayment period of 15 years, Finland has a long-standing system of state-backed loan guarantees with private bank-facilitated loans with a repayment period of up to 30 years, while Canada provides means-tested student loans targeted to students with low family incomes, students with disability and students responsible for dependents (Box 4.3).
Lithuania has implemented a system of state loans and state-supported loans administered by a selected private bank with pre-established conditions. State loans and state-supported loans to students were introduced to contribute to covering tuition fees in higher education and living costs during full-time education. The state covers administration costs and provides a loan guarantee in case of default. The loan repayment term is 15 years. Loans are provided at variable interest rates set by the credit agreement with the bank, and in certain cases, the state pays interest rates for specific target groups (State Study Fund[25]).
Finland operates a system of state-backed loan guarantees that students can use to apply for a student loan with a commercial bank to help students cover their living costs while studying (to complement non-repayable study grants and fully subsidised tuition fees). Students are eligible for a loan guarantee if they also receive the means-tested state study grant from the social insurance authority Kela, or an adult education allowance. The loan guarantee is valid for up to 30 years from the first disbursement of loan funds and the interest payable on the loan and the repayment schedule are agreed between the student and the bank. However, graduates whose income falls below certain limits can apply for interest assistance from Kela (Kela[26]).
The Canada Student Financial Assistance Program started operating in 1964 as the Canada Student Loan Program and provides non-repayable grants and loans targeted to lower- and middle-income students to improve access to and affordability of higher education. Student finance is delivered through partnerships between the federal government and participating provincial and territorial governments and covers nearly 60% of full-time students. Applicants in participating sub-national jurisdictions are assessed for federal and provincial loans and grants through a single application process (Employment and social development Canada, 2021[27]).
Key finding:
Despite a solid foundation of direct and indirect financial supports, students can still experience credit constraints when it comes to paying for living costs while studying, raising barriers for widening access, achieving a good student-to-programme match, and supporting completion rates, particularly for mobile students.
Recommendations:
1. Revise the formula for calculating the means-tested grant with the aim of making an explicit contribution to tuition fees and an explicit contribution to living costs and consider the possibility of increasing the generosity of living cost contributions to the lower-income and mobile grant recipients.
2. Explore the possibility of introducing a state-guaranteed living cost loan to students where the state and students jointly contribute to the portion of necessary living costs during studying that are not covered by the grant, ensuring cross-party, long-term commitment and attention to address culturally important concerns related to taking on loans.
4.2.4. Lower-income mobile students could be eligible for extra direct and indirect housing support
Living costs tend to be higher for students who study in a location away from their parental home and live independently. Such financial constraints risk impacting lower-income students disproportionately since they tend to have fewer financial resources at their disposal to invest in education. Considering opportunities for student mobility is therefore important in order to understand barriers to achieving good student-to-programme matches.
A growth in mobile students puts pressure on the stock of student accommodation
The share of students in Portugal who are registered as mobile (“deslocados” or “displaced”)2 has increased in recent years, and significantly between 2019 and 2022 in particular. While the majority of students in Portugal remain living in their parental home while studying, data from Portugal indicate that 33% of students enrolled in all cycles of study (excluding students enrolled in credit mobility programmes, e.g. exchange students) were considered mobile in 2023, up from 25% in 2014 (Figure 4.5). The increase in student mobility poses challenges for local housing markets.
Share and number of enrolled students who are registered as mobile (“displaced”), Portugal, 2014-2023
Note: Data includes students enrolled in all cycles of study in public and private institutions and excludes students enrolled in credit mobility programmes (i.e. exchange students). Mobile students are defined as students registered as ‘displaced’ by their higher education institution.
Source: DGEEC, Survey on the Registration of Enrolled and Graduated Higher Education Students (RAIDES), 2013-2023.
The provision of subsidised student housing tends to be the favoured solution to provide student housing in Portugal, particularly as support for lower-income mobile students. Subsidised student housing is provided and managed by social support services in higher education institutions, which also undertake the selection process if subsidised student housing is oversubscribed. In oversubscribed accommodation, grant recipients are granted preference over students who do not qualify for the grant.
A recent evaluation in Portugal found that there is some disparity between student demand and the supply of subsidised student housing. The overall number of mobile students most exceeded the number of available student rooms was in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra, as well as at the polytechnic institute of Cávado and Ave in the Braga district (MCTES, 2022[28]). The extensive private provision in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra provides additional indication that there is outstanding demand for student accommodation in these areas (PNAES, 2024[29]).
4.2.5. Portugal has made important improvements in the support to mobile students, but some challenges remain
Portugal has undertaken large-scale investment in the stock of student accommodation
With the aim that at least all students receiving grants can be offered subsidised accommodation on request, the government launched a large-scale student housing investment plan, the national accommodation plan for higher education (Plano Nacional para o Alojamento no Ensino Superior, PNAES) in 2018. PNAES looks to provide an integrated and long-term response to the increasing need for affordable student accommodation (Diário da República, 2018[30]; Diário da República, 2019[31]) (see Box 4.4).
Under the Contrato de Legislatura for 2020-23, the Government in Portugal agreed to invest in the National Housing Plan for Higher Education (Plano Nacional para o Alojamento no Ensino Superior, PNAES) to increase the number of beds in subsidised student housing. The government has invested a total of EUR 516 million, EUR 447 million of which is financed by the EU-funded Recovery and Resilience Plan, where EUR 375 million is a loan and EUR 72 million an additional grant.
Financing is allocated to eligible institutions as a grant and has been provided to public bodies with an important role in science and higher education, such as local authorities, higher education institutions and other eligible entities with recognised activity in social, real estate and hospitality fields.
With the target of raising the number of rooms in subsidised student accommodation available at regulated prices to 30 000 by 2030, involving 18 000 beds by the first quarter of 2026, PNAES is the largest investment ever in student housing in Portugal. Most of the planned new beds are located in Lisbon (2 964), Braga (1 524) and Coimbra (695). The smallest number of beds will be constructed in Castelo Branco, the island regions, Guarda, and Évora.
Source: OECD (2022[32]); PNAES (2023[33]); Eurydice (2023[34]); and bespoke tables from PNAES, 2025.
The ability of PNAES to address the unmet demand for student housing will depend on the extent to which it can prioritise additions to the housing stock in areas with the greatest need. Figure 4.6 estimates the level of unmet need, defined as the number of expected beds after PNAES minus the number of mobile students in 2023/24, across districts in Portugal. Panel A considers the unmet need when taking into account only the number of mobile students who also receive means-tested study grants from the government, while Panel B considers all mobile students. Panel A indicates that even with the new beds expected under PNAES, there will likely remain considerable unmet need even when considering only grant recipients, including in Coimbra, Aveiro and Vila Real. In other districts, the need among grant recipients is expected to be met, while there will likely remain considerable unmet needs among students who are not eligible for the means-tested study grant, including notably in Lisbon and Coimbra (Figure 4.6).
Estimate unmet need based on the number of expected beds under PNAES by 2030 subtracted from the number of mobile students with grants (Panel A) and the number of all mobile students (Panel B) in 2023/24, public sector, by district
Note: Data include students enrolled in all cycles of study in public institutions but exclude students in credit transfer programmes (i.e. exchange students). Data for available residencies in 2017 only include public institutions. Institutional data from RAIDES tend to report fewer grant recipients than DGES national aggregates, which means that the chart may be underestimating the unmet need for grant recipients. Where the number of reported mobile grant recipients is lower than 3 in 2022/23, data refer to the second-latest reported numbers. This means that instead of 2023/24, data on enrolled grant recipients refer to 2022/23 for Beja and Bragança, and to 2016/17 for Guarda.
Source: DGES (2017) Inquérito DGES para Programa Nacional de Alojamento Académico, accessible in PNAES (2023[33]); bespoke tables, PNAES; DGEEC (2023[35]), RAIDES.
Given the expected level of unmet need remaining after PNAES, it cannot be assumed that purpose-built state-subsidised student accommodation can sufficiently meet needs in the short term. Going forward, the Ministry could therefore consider further ways to continue to improve the accessibility of affordable student housing through targeted investment and collaborations with regulated private providers.
It will be important to evaluate the adequacy of the provision and allocation of subsidised student housing across institutions independently to ensure that the existing stock of housing is fit for purpose and that the allocation process is effective in supporting mobile students immediately on arrival in their first year. It will also be crucial to evaluate the actual level of unmet need for student housing (for lower-income and higher-income students) after the completion of PNAES and ensure that future publicly funded investments in student housing contribute proportionately to locations with the greatest outstanding need. If it is possible for the Ministry to secure more funding for student housing in the long term, the allocation of funding should aim to provide housing in the locations with the greatest current and expected unmet need. An example of a country with a long-standing commitment to maintaining a large stock of student housing can be seen in the well-established network of student housing in Finland (Nordic Co-operation[36]; SOA Association[37]) (Box 4.5).
In the medium term, it is likely that there will still be a shortage of student accommodation. It is therefore crucial to acknowledge that students must engage with the private rented market. It is a good first step that the PNAES includes a project to map the private (and public) student accommodation available on the market and prices across different geographical locations in Portugal, through the Observatory for Student Housing, Alfredo, (although this system likely excludes the undeclared private rental market).
The Ministry could complement its necessarily long-term work on the provision of new subsidised institution-managed student housing by engaging with the private and non-profit sector. The Ministry could work across government, higher education institutions, and municipalities to encourage collaborations with private for-profit and non-profit providers of purpose-built accommodation, possibly drawing on the experience in Vienna, Austria (Franz and Gruber, 2022[38]) (Box 4.5). Acknowledging that private for-purpose student housing risks pushing up market prices, the government could consider approaches to regulate private providers in ways to keep student rents at least slightly below market rents.
In Finland, non-profit student housing organisations are either owned by foundations, municipalities, student unions or associations. The student housing organisations that operate under the co-ordination of the Finnish Association of Student Housing Organisations (SOA) are present in the major university cities and together own over 45 000 (mostly) state-subsidised rental apartments. Student selection criteria to access the apartments can vary, but in general full-time students whose studies lead to a degree can apply for housing. Students have access to rooms in shared apartments, studios intended for one student and family apartments intended for couples or students with children. Studios are in high demand and can require students to join a wait list (Nordic Co-operation[36]; SOA Association[37]). Students who are entitled to student financial support and live in the institutions’ accommodation receive a student financial housing supplement, while students who live outside institutions’ accommodation (and not with their parents) receive the general housing allowance via the social insurance institution Kela (Nordic Co-operation[36]).
For-profit student housing providers started operating in the Viennese student housing market, in Austria, from 2010 onwards as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, not-for-profit housing. Student housing providers in Vienna operate within a long tradition of social housing provision and non-profit providers have traditionally received public funding for construction and maintenance costs. For-profit developers complement non-profit providers and cater to a student population with greater spending power and have provided most of the new‐build student accommodation in the city since 2015. The increases in for-profit housing providers have occurred in parallel with smaller increases in non-profit accommodation. Non-profit providers report that the observed demand for housing seems to have been met to a greater extent, and that they have therefore focused on quality upgrades rather than on increasing the stock. An inventory of student accommodation shows that out of the 130 accommodation facilities, the majority are still run on a non-profit basis to provide housing to students who need lower-cost housing options (Franz and Gruber, 2022[38]).
The housing supplement aims to financially support lower-income students who are not able to access a place in subsidised student housing
The government has acknowledged that some students may not be able to secure a place in subsidised student housing and have made special provisions for mobile students with lower family incomes. Mobile students who fulfil the criteria of being “displaced” and who receive the state-funded study grant can be eligible for a housing supplement if they have applied to, but been denied, a place in subsidised student housing. The housing supplement is a monthly contribution to private rented accommodation, equal to the rental cost actually paid for the accommodation up to limits set for each municipality and is provided during the academic period in which the state grant is awarded. In 2024 it was expanded at 50% of the full supplement for non-eligible students with income per capita between 23 and 28 IAS (Diário da República, 2024[21]). Subsequently, in 2025, a law (which has not yet been regulated) was passed by the Assembly of the Republic (Assembleia da República) determining that the eligibility criteria are to be expanded to include mobile students with an annual family income up to and including the sixth income tax bracket (Diário da República, 2025[39]).3
The law passed by the Assembly of the Republic determines that the level of the housing supplement is to be increased substantially across many municipalities in 2025 (Diário da República, 2025[39]). While this law has not yet been regulated, the announced increase would occur on top of previous increases (beyond annual adjustments) by the ministry responsible for higher education in October 2023 and December 2022 (Diário da República, 2023[40]; Diário da República, 2022[41]). The increase in October 2023 had already brought the supplement roughly in line with average housing costs in each geographical district. The planned increases announced in the law from 2025 provide a disproportionately high housing supplement in lower-cost districts. For example, while it seems adequate that the housing supplement is set to 75% of IAS in Setúbal, it appears less aligned with observed costs in Bragança and Guarda (Figure 4.7) (Diário da República, 2025[39]).
Average monthly cost of private rented student accommodation in August 2024 and the maximum expected housing supplement using the 2024/25 and 2025/26 criteria, by district, Portugal
Note: Average monthly costs of private rented student accommodation refer to observed prices in August 2024. To ensure comparability with the data on rental costs, the IAS for 2024 is used to calculate the estimated housing supplements for both 2025/26 and 2024/2025. All prices are in nominal terms. Housing supplements are provided based on the geographical level of the municipality while data on averages prices for private student accommodation are given by district. Where the housing supplements available differ within a district, the figure shows the highest housing supplement available in the district. Some districts therefore include municipalities where the housing supplement is lower than the one shown on the chart.
Source: PNAES (2024[42]), Índice de preços do alojamento estudantil, sumário por cidade 08-2024; Diário da República (2025[39]; 2023[40]).
Such high housing supplements in lower-cost regions would allow students to pay for housing at a price above the district average, which risks pushing up prices in the housing market, particularly as the eligibility criteria for the housing supplement is further expanded.
The recent increases of the housing supplement combined with the expanded eligibility criteria in terms of family income and the administrative difficulties of adequately controlling students’ eligibility (discussed in Section 4.3), may also provide an argument for lowering the level of the housing supplement, particularly in low-cost districts. Lowering the level of the supplement would open up the possibility of reallocating some funds to a contribution to living costs for low-income mobile students distributed as a boost to the means-tested study grant for students registered as “displaced”, as discussed in the next section.
The Mais Superior programme risks creating adverse incentives
The government offers grants to some students through the “Mais Superior” programme, which aim to support higher education enrolment in institutions located in areas of Portugal where there is currently lower student demand. It targets low-income students who move to an area which is experiencing lower student demand to enrol in an institution.
The Mais Superior programme started to provide grants specifically targeted at students from lower-income families in 2016/17, and since 2019/20, the value of the grant has been fixed at the nominal value of EUR 1 700 annually. The value of the grant is increased by 15% for students who enrol in short-cycle CTeSPs and students entering through the special competitions for candidates over 23 years (Diário da República, 2021[12]; Diário da República, 2023[13]). The Mais Superior grant is provided to relatively few students but considering that the minimum grant in the mainstream student grant system is set at EUR 871 per year, students in receipt of the Mais Superior grant will receive a considerable boost to their income.
While the purpose of Mais Superior is to enhance territorial cohesion by encouraging lower-income students to move to less economically vibrant regions, it risks counteracting the policy aim of promoting equity in education. The comparatively high level at which the grant is set can skew incentives for lower-income students to choose programmes that are not optimal for them. Such geographical targeting is therefore risky and should be implemented with great care. For the purpose of promoting equity in educational opportunities, it could be more effective to introduce a smaller living-cost contribution for all mobile grant recipients (beyond the current contribution to housing costs), unconditional on the study location.
Key finding:
Despite large-scale government spending to increase the quality and stock of subsidised student housing, a shortage of student beds will likely remain in certain geographical areas, which raises barriers for widening access, achieving a good student-to-programme match, and supporting completion rates, particularly for mobile students.
Recommendation:
3. Continue to improve the accessibility of affordable student housing through targeted investment and collaborations with regulated private providers.
Student financial support systems not only support students during their studies but also play an important signalling role. For the student financial grant system to work well, it is necessary that students (including prospective ones) know which supports they are eligible for and how much support they can expect to receive. This will help students and their families to make informed choices about whether and what to study. It will also help the government to communicate the incentives they have built into the support system, including policy and political aims such as widening access, encouraging talented students to move to selective courses, or promoting territorial cohesion.
Insights from behavioural economics suggest that many observed student behavioural patterns, such as present bias (the tendency to give greater weight to outcomes in the present compared to the future), over-reliance on routine or defaults, and debt aversion, are particularly pronounced among individuals who face complex decisions (Lavecchia, Liu and Oreopoulos, 2016[43]; Scott-Clayton, 2011[44]; Hoxby and Turner, 2015[45]; Hoxby and Turner, 2013[46]; Carrell and Sacerdote, 2017[47]). Similarly, research on welfare applications in the Netherlands show that applicants experiencing longer processing times are more likely to withdraw or fail to complete their applications (Vethaak et al., 2025[48]). Clarity and effectiveness in administrative processes are therefore key in ensuring that targeted support reaches the intended recipients.
4.3.1. The eligibility criteria for support changes in the transition from secondary education to higher education, making predictability challenging
In Portugal, as elsewhere, a complex grant application system with criteria that are difficult to understand and implement effectively can create uncertainty among current and prospective students. This uncertainty can have a negative impact on students’ perception of the opportunities available to them, and in the worst case, deter prospective students from applying or enrolling in higher education. This is highlighted by one respondent to the project survey who reported that lower-income candidates struggle with "the fear of being placed at a university far from home, due to the delay in granting social support, for example, months without receiving a scholarship."
Project stakeholder interviews highlight that social action support teams struggle to appropriately implement the eligibility checks in non-typical but not uncommon cases, including notably for single-parent households, households with independent workers and households with undeclared income. The case management system for such non-typical cases is reportedly slow and resource intensive. Some social support teams report to the project that they need to spend several months on evaluating applications, due to the low number of social assistance personnel relative to the administrative burden and the number of applicants.
At least part of the reported uncertainty around the grant levels arises because the eligibility criteria for the higher education study grant are different from the eligibility criteria for ASE grants in secondary education (which uses the system used for the overall benefit system, including family benefits, “Abono de família para crianças e jovens”). Importantly, the formulae for adjusting the annual income to family size are different, meaning that the same annual family income results in different per capita family incomes used to establish the eligibility bracket (see Section 4.2.3 for a detailed discussion on the effects of this).
Some differences also exist between the eligibility criteria for the higher education study grant and the family benefits in the definition of the household, defined in the legal dispatch n. 7253/2024 of 3 July for the study grant and the Decree-law n. 70/2010 for the family benefits. More importantly, however, there are also considerable differences in the definitions of the incomes that should be taken into account for the means test, defined in the legal dispatch 7253/2024 and the decree-law 70/2010 respectively, particularly for income from dependent work (article 35 and article 6, respectively), income from business and professional income (article 36 and article 7, respectively), and capital income (article 37 and article 8, respectively), as highlighted in Table 4.1.
Project stakeholder interviews highlight that social action support teams struggle to appropriately implement the eligibility checks in non-typical but not uncommon cases, including notably for single-parent households, households with independent workers, and households with undeclared income. The case management system for such non-typical cases is reportedly slow and resource intensive. Some social support teams report to the project that they need to spend several months on evaluating applications, due to the low number of social assistance personnel relative to the administrative burden and the number of applicants.
For example, accurately reporting the family situation can be more challenging in non-traditional family constellations, changing situations and multi-generational households. The number of these situations risk growing since increasing housing costs have meant some families have coped by moving in with elderly parents or other relatives. Even though family members may accept to live together in the short term to cope with immediate financial difficulties, this does not necessarily mean that they consider themselves one household that shares large expenses equally. However, it can be difficult for students to prove their experienced situation.
At worst, the difficulties in objectively interpreting the guidance on evaluating student eligibility could mean that some grant-eligible students do not receive the level of support to which they are theoretically entitled. For example, in one stakeholder interview, a member of the social support services staff highlighted an example where two siblings reporting the same information in the same year to different institutions were provided with different grant levels.
It is promising that the Ministry is working on an improved information system for the Directorate-General of Higher Education (Direção-Geral do Ensino Superior, DGES) in the near term and has committed to changing the procedures set out in the Regulation for the Allocation of Scholarships to Higher Education Students (Regulamento de Atribuição de Bolsas de Estudo a Estudantes do Ensino Superior, RABEES) with the aim of ensuring that decisions on applications for scholarships, conditional on enrolment, will be known before the results of the national competition for access to higher education are published (Diário da Rebública, 2025[50]).
However, given that the final decision is currently based on the interoperability between DGES, the tax authorities and the social security system, which is reportedly only possible after September, it should be made clear to students that the decision is preliminary and pending a final eligibility check by the social support services in higher education institutions (Diário da Rebública, 2025[50]). A short-term policy option would be to abandon this pay back provision. In such a situation, students would not be liable to pay back overpayment in cases they are found after initial checks eligible for a lower (or no grant) compared to the predicted decision. Grant payments received after the final assessment is made would simply be adjusted downward.
To help provide further predictability for students and their families, the Ministry and DGES could investigate the possibility of aligning their formula for calculating family income adjusted for household size and eligibility criteria with the family benefit income brackets (“escalões”) and consider whether there could be closer collaboration between the higher education sector and the competent body in the social security system on assessing students’ eligibility in future.
4.3.2. The complexity of operationalising the eligibility controls of the lowest-income students means that case management is overly slow and resource intensive
It is particularly important to limit waiting times for those in most need of the study grant, which in the means-tested system in Portugal is deemed to be the lowest-income students. It is therefore promising that a recently implemented system of automatic allocation of grants for some students has helped address the long waiting times for some of the students with the lowest family incomes.
From 2020/21, students who had received a grant in the previous year and who had not experienced significant changes in their household income, were provided with the same grant amount in the following academic year (DGES, 2024[51]). Additionally, from the 2022/23 academic year, students who received school social action (Ação Social Escolar) in brackets A, B, or C in secondary education and who entered higher education through the National Access Competition automatically started receiving the means-tested study grant (MCTES, 2024[52]; DGES, 2024[51]). Participants in project focus groups reported that the automatic allocation of grants was considered to have had a positive impact on student decisions, as it provides students with immediate support upon enrolment.
However, not all students who received the study grant advance based on the preliminary decision are eligible to receive their predicted grant level. When the final eligibility checks are completed by the higher education institutions, the decision can therefore be corrected. In these cases, students are requested to repay the grant they had already received in surplus of that for which they are eligible. Project interviews with stakeholders in social support teams in higher education institutions highlight that completing the eligibility checks can be challenging in some cases, prolonging the process several months. Stakeholders also explain that the eligibility checks for students receiving an advance are completed last – since these cases are deemed to be less urgent when students are already receiving some grant. However, this system means that students can incur large sums for repayment if they are found to be ineligible or eligible for a lower support level than initially estimated.
Eligibility checks are particularly liable to be prolonged, thereby making receipt uncertain, in cases with the lowest-income students. The social support teams are obliged to interview the applicant in order to ascertain the veracity of the declared income and the family situation, whenever the annual family per capita income is less than six times the IAS (EUR 3 056 in 2024). For a stylised case of a family of two parents and two children living independently in a household, this cut-off family per capita income for an interview translates into an annual family income of EUR 12 222 per year (see dotted blue line in Figure 4.8). This compares with the annual national minimum wage (for a single person) of EUR 11 480 in 2024 (Diário da República, 2023[53]).
As mentioned in the previous section, the formulae for adjusting the annual income to family size are also different between the study grant at higher education and the social action support at secondary education. For the higher education grant, the “per capita family income” is the value resulting from dividing the annual household income by the number of people comprising it. For the family benefits, the “reference income” is the result of dividing annual household income by the number of children and young people entitled to family allowance, plus one. This means that the same annual family income result in different per capita family incomes used to establish the eligibility bracket.
Figure 4.8 shows a stylised example to illustrate the impact of the differences in the calculation to adjust for family size with a given family income and a given family size. In the stylised example of a family with two parents and two children living independently, an annual unadjusted family income of EUR 12 000 would be calculated as a per capita income of 3 000 (four family members) for the higher education study grant. Meanwhile, the same income would be adjusted to the reference income of EUR 4 000 (two dependents plus one) for ASE in secondary education.
In the higher education grant system, this means that the per capita family income is less than 6 IAS and the student will be requested to attend an interview to prove their income and family situation. By comparison, for the secondary education ASE, the adjusted family income is nearly 8 IAS, which places the family in ASE bracket B. Figure 4.8 illustrates the higher education study grant levels in the chart and the ASE eligibility along the horizontal axis.
In the shorter term, there might therefore be a case to relax the conditions that necessitate an interview. These systemically result in longer decision periods and uncertain levels of receipt for the lowest-income students and run counter to policy to widen access. In the medium term, the government could revise the eligibility criteria for the means-tested grant with the aim of ensuring that the grant system is implementable in a predictable, fair, and effective manner.
Expected value of the annual student grant for Portuguese students and School Social Action eligibility for a modelled example of a family with two parents and two children, 2024
Note: The modelled annual family income is calculated as the annual family per capita income multiplied by four (two parents and two children). The chart includes a dotted line up until a family income of six times the IAS to indicate that there are further investigations in situations where family incomes per capita are registered at or below 6 times IAS in 2024. The model assumes that the maximum legal tuition fee is paid and that all conditions other than family income are fulfilled for eligibility to the higher education study grant, including, but not limited to, conditions related to citizenship, movable assets, course choice, and credits completed. It also assumes that the family lives independently of other family members. The reference higher education student grant is calculated as 11 times the IAS plus the maximum legal tuition fee in 2024. The maximum family income is calculated as the IAS multiplied by 23 times in 2024. The income bounds for ASE uses IAS values in 2023, in accordance with eligibility rules for 2024. The model does not include any supplements.
Source: DGAEP (2023[19]); OECD (2025[6]); Diário da República (2012[20]); Diário da República (2024[54]); and Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2025[55]).
4.3.3. The design of the housing supplement rightly attempts to curb informality in the private rented sector, but risks placing the burden of control on vulnerable students
With regard to the housing supplement, project interviews with stakeholders highlighted the difficulties students have in proving their eligibility. Stakeholders report that students looking for housing in private rented accommodation often must rely on informal arrangements without contracts and with rent payments in cash. This poses a problem to students applying for the housing supplement, since they need to provide monthly receipts as proof of payment (Diário da República, 2024[21]). A law from the Assembly of the Republic passed in 2025 but not yet regulated determines that these rules will be slightly relaxed as students will be able to prove payment by showing a bank transfer (Diário da República, 2025[39]). However, a problem will remain where students are required to pay for their housing with cash.
It is clear that the government would like to address the larger issue a widespread informality in the private rented sector. This issue is likely to affect student housing as well as other forms of private rentals, including short-term tourist rentals and longer-term private rented housing. Students – like other renters – would benefit from the protections afforded by a formalised housing market, and the Ministry could consider collaborating across government and with the tax authorities to implement broad actions to help regularise the market and identify questionable landlords.
Meanwhile, the Ministry is tasked with the difficult challenge of supporting students facing a housing market with a reportedly high degree of informality. It is important to discourage the irregular housing market, but it is a tall order to place the responsibility for regularising rental contracts on individual low-income students. Low-income students are not only competing for housing with high-income students but also with the tourist sector and other short-term rentals, meaning that the bargaining power of low-income students with private landlords is generally low.
Moreover, the monthly housing supplement is conditional on providing a rental contract or supplying a monthly application and eligibility check occurring after the rental payment (Diário da República, 2024[21]). This procedure risks making the payment of the supplement untimely and may mean that low-income students prefer the certainty of a lower-cost informal agreement to a higher-cost formal agreement with the risk of being reimbursed late (or not at all) via the housing supplement.
It would be concerning if the vulnerability of low-income students – due to their low bargaining power and overall credit constraints – itself induced them to accept the lowest-cost rentals without formal agreements or receipts. This may mean that the housing supplement, by design, risks failing to reach the lowest-income students who should be its primary target group. Such challenges in targeting are particularly pertinent given the substantial additional resources recently allocated to the housing supplement system to increase its level and expand eligibility in terms of family income. The government could therefore consider revising the eligibility criteria for the housing supplement with the aim of ensuring that the system is implementable in a predictable, fair, and effective manner.
In an ideal world, students would have an official rental contract and monthly payment receipts to show as proof of their rental status. However, given the vulnerability of low-income students in the rental market, it may be reasonable to show greater flexibility in accepting informal documentation. The verification of rental status through more informal documentation could occur under conditions with a similar level of flexibility as those in Article 44 in the Order defining the conditions for granting the means-tested study grant, namely that: “income subject to withholding taxes and income from work not declared for IRS purposes may be considered as income, subject to the student's commitment of honour or upon presentation of a supporting document” (Diário da República, 2024[21]).
Key finding:
Complexities in the eligibility criteria for the study grant and accommodation supplement introduce unpredictability regarding grant receipt and result in prolonged eligibility checks, which pose barriers for widening access and achieving a good student-to-programme match, particularly for mobile students.
Recommendations:
4. Revise the eligibility criteria for the means-tested grant with the aim of ensuring that the grant system is implementable in a predictable, fair and effective manner.
5. Revise the eligibility criteria for the housing supplement with the aim of ensuring that the system is implementable in a predictable, fair and effective manner.
It is valuable that students in Portugal have access to a range of indirect student support services, including subsidised canteens and student housing, as well as non-financial student support programmes. Higher education institutions are responsible for organising and funding these services. To do so, institutions depend heavily on public funding through the institutions’ core budgets. Social support services also receive complementary funding from DGES that contributes to the provision of indirect financial support for students, including subsidised canteens and student housing, according to the number of meals served and beds occupied in student housing by grant holders.
Social support teams in higher education institutions can also supplement their internal budgets with income from various sources, including revenues from their own provision of services within the scope of social support; tuition fee payments; proceeds from fees, emoluments and fines (Diário da República, 1993[56]). Social support teams also retain some autonomy in the types of services they provide. While all social support services manage certain core services such as student housing and subsidised canteens, some teams also provide some health care services, including mental health support, mentoring and tutoring programmes, as well as other forms of support. Such flexibilities can help social support teams provide services and support but could also contribute to variations between higher education institutions in the availability and type of support measures (OECD, 2022[32]).
As previous OECD analysis on the resourcing of the higher education system in Portugal has discussed in detail, core-funding allocations to individual institutions had become progressively misaligned with real enrolment levels. In the years after the 2008-09 financial crisis, core-funding allocations to institutions were decoupled from enrolment levels. While the government did significantly reduce public funding to institutions after the financial crisis, it has since increased investment in the sector. Core funding from the state budget for public institutions increased by 15% in nominal terms between 2017 and 2021 (OECD, 2022[32]). However, the decision not to apply a formula-based allocation process between 2009 and 2023 contributed to considerable differences in the funding for Social Action Services per enrolled student (Figure 4.9).
Funding for "Social Action Services” in higher education institutions from the State Budget and other sources per enrolled student, public universities and public polytechnic institutes, by budget type, 2023
Note: In the figure, U refers to “Universidade” or “University” and IP refers to “Instituto Politécnico” or Polytechnic Institute”. UTAD refers to Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. Funding is for the financial year 2023 and student numbers are for the academic year 2023/24. Disaggregated data on the budgets allocated to Social Action Services are not available for public institutions with foundation status (one public polytechnic institute (IPCA) and four public universities (Aveiro, ISCTE, Nova and Porto)).
Source: Bespoke tables by DGES; DGEEC (2023[35]), RAIDES.
It is positive that a new higher education financing model was applied in 2023/24 (Diário da República, 2024[57]), integrating many of the recommendations from the OECD report Resourcing Higher Education in Portugal (OECD, 2022[32]) and providing a strong foundation for the sector to adapt to changing demographic conditions. However, under the previous funding model, institutions that did not have foundation status, had a separate budget line for the funding allocation to Social Action Services, but that is not the case in the new formula. Instead, the funding is allocated to institutions as a whole and each institution decides how much to give to social support services.
There is some oversight to make sure that institutions provide a minimum level of relevant core services. Within institutions, the Social Welfare Council manages the system of social support. This is the advisory body responsible for the management of social action within the scope of each higher education institution. It is responsible for defining and guiding the support to be granted to students (Diário da República, 1993[56]). Outside of institutions, the Higher Education Coordinating Council is a co-ordinating body made up of national and international experts which advises institutions on a wide range of issues, including social action programmes (Diário da República, 2023[58]).
There will remain a need to monitor funding for social support services. The Ministry could commission an analysis of the factors that explain variations in the per-student levels of investment in student social action services between public higher education institutions and consider the case for minimum levels of provision, or adjustments in the implemented formula.
For example, assigning greater weight in the per-student funding to students from under-represented population groups can align funding with the costs institutions face in providing social services and suppress the possible temptation for institutions to reduce or restrict their intake of under-represented groups for financial reasons (Dougherty et al., 2014[59]). Perhaps the Ministry could draw inspiration from Ireland, which provides a boost in the per-student funding for students from equity target groups or the needs-based funding system in Australia (Salmi and D’Addio, 2021[60]; Australian Department of Education, 2024[61]) (Box 4.6).
Ireland provides a boost in the per-student funding to institutions for students from equity target groups. The funding formula for institutions in Ireland allocates a block grant to higher education institutions on the basis of enrolment numbers and cost of disciplines, while also providing a 30% premium for each student that institutions enrol and who belong to any of the priority equity target groups defined by government (students from low socio-economic background, ethnic- or cultural-minority background, or with disability) (Salmi and D’Addio, 2021[60]; OECD, 2022[62]).
The Australian government has committed to implementing a new needs-based funding system as a core component of funding for higher education teaching and learning. As recommended in the Australian Universities Accord (Recommendation 13). Needs-based Funding will provide per-student funding for students from historically under-represented backgrounds (students from low socio-economic status, areas and First Nations students), and students studying at regional and remote campuses recognising the higher cost of delivery in these areas. The proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) will have a role as the system steward to implement needs-based funding (Australian Department of Education, 2024[61]).
Key finding:
Variations in the funding that institutions allocate to social student support services from their budgets can contribute to differences in the quality of these services across institutions, which can limit their impact on reducing barriers to support student success.
Recommendation:
1. Commission an analysis of the factors that explain variations in the per-student levels of investment in student social action services between public higher education institutions.
References
[61] Australian Department of Education (2024), Australian Universities Accord Final Report, Australian Department of Education, https://www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/final-report.
[55] Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2025), Abono de família: 12 perguntas e respostas sobre como funciona, https://www.cgd.pt/Site/Saldo-Positivo/protecao/Pages/abono-de-familia.aspx.
[14] Caixa Geral de Depósitos (2023), Ação social escolar: o que é e como solicitar?, https://www.cgd.pt/Site/Saldo-Positivo/protecao/Pages/acao-social-escolar.aspx.
[47] Carrell, S. and B. Sacerdote (2017), “Why Do College-Going Interventions Work?”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 9/3, https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20150530.
[19] DGAEP (2023), Valores do IAS, DGAEP, https://www.dgaep.gov.pt/index.cfm?OBJID=3E74CF19-DA87-4B8F-81E2-51E0649AAA9F.
[35] DGEEC (2023), Inscritos 2023-2024 Inquérito ao Registo de Alunos Inscritos e Diplomados do Ensino Superior, Direção-Geral de Estatísticas da Educação e Ciência, https://www.dgeec.medu.pt/art/ensino-superior/bases-de-dados/todas/652ff89abd5c2b00958292d7#artigo-657182903c4f90613cb1b74d.
[51] DGES (2024), O Ensino Superior em Portugal 2021-2023, DGES, https://wwwcdn.dges.gov.pt/sites/default/files/o_ensino_superior_em_portugal_2021-2023_documento_final_172024.pdf.
[5] DGES (2024), Propinas, https://www.dges.gov.pt/pt/pagina/propinas.
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← 1. This sum can be contextualised by comparing it with a household where the parents earn the minimum wage. In 2024, the monthly minimum wage was EUR 820, corresponding to an annual minimum wage of EUR 11 480 for a 14-month wage. In a household with two parents working full time at minimum wage and two children, the gross per-capita family wage would therefore be EUR 5 740. This family per-capita income (disregarding of any family benefits for which they may be eligible) would mean that the family would only be eligible to the minimum grant level.
← 2. Mobile or “displaced” students are defined as students aged 25 or younger who attend a higher education institution more than 50 km from their parental home and enrolled in a programme to which it is impossible to commute by public transport from their parental home.
← 3. Beyond widening the eligibility to the housing supplement, the law from Assembly of the Republic determines that the income tax brackets should be used, rather than the current adjustment for family income used in the system. While the current adjustment divides the total household income by the number of people in the household, the adjustment to determine the tax bracket divides the income between two spouses only.