Wider access to, and success in, higher education contributes to helping young people thrive in a changing labour market. It also allows governments to optimise the use of public funds in building a high-skilled workforce while reinforcing democratic values. A broadly shared international consensus supports the policy aim of promoting equity of opportunity in education, highlighted through the Social Dimension of the Bologna Process, the European Union’s European Strategy for Universities and OECD Legal Instruments.
International research identifies at least three key overarching factors that shape opportunities to access and complete higher education: prior achievement, financial support and access to information. This report focuses on analysing inequities in opportunity arising from differences in parental income and socio-economic background in Portugal. Specifically, it considers the opportunities for secondary education students to transition to public higher education immediately following their graduation, and on the opportunities for higher education students who have enrolled in a programme to succeed.
The higher education system in Portugal is in a relatively strong position after years of positive development, but some challenges remain. The country 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 countries. Even so, lower-income students in Portugal remain less likely than higher-income students to transition into higher education, and also less likely to enrol in the most selective “programmes of excellence”. However, lower-income students on average do not have higher drop-out rates than higher-income students when considering students who enrol in similar programmes and via the same entry routes.
Opportunities for further education are crucially influenced by outcomes and achievement at the end of secondary education. The study orientation of secondary education programmes – general versus vocational – is crucial in shaping access to higher education in Portugal, as in many other OECD member countries.
In general programmes, transition rates are high, albeit with some differences across income groups. In 2022/23, 76% of secondary education graduates from general programmes enrolled in a higher education programme in the following year. Although the National Access Competition is well designed to treat applicants objectively, higher-income students remain more likely than lower-income students to enrol in higher education. This reflects systemic differences in entry grades across income groups, likely – in addition to other motivational factors – because higher-income students access more hours of privately provided extra-curricular tutoring and experience greater positive effects of inflated internal subject assessments compared with lower-income students. This raises barriers for lower-income students to achieve similar secondary education leaving grades as higher-income students, at any given academic ability.
By contrast, transition rates for the 2022/23 cohort of graduates from vocational secondary education programmes are relatively low (22%). This disproportionately affects lower-income students since they are over-represented in vocational programmes. Compared to students in general study orientations, vocational students who want to enrol in higher education experience less straightforward pathways and less teaching support to prepare for any application to higher education. It is promising that short-cycle programmes, in practice, have emerged as an entry route to higher education and as a transition pathway to a bachelor’s degree, but challenges remain in evaluating and formalising this pathway.
Financial costs associated with higher education studies influence opportunities for higher education study since the willingness and ability to cover these costs vary by socio-economic background. Portugal has a solid foundation of direct and indirect financial supports to students, enrolling 80% of students in public institutions with subsidised tuition fees, housing, meals and the provision of other social support services. This support is combined with means-tested support in the form of study grants and extra support for mobile students in both private and public institutions.
The study grant eligibility check also determines access to other means-tested supports, including priority access to student housing and access to financial housing support, which increases its importance. It is promising that consecutive governments in Portugal have expanded the eligibility criteria for the provision of support at the minimum grant level. However, there have been limited changes to the eligibility criteria for the increased grant levels that aim to contribute to living costs. In addition, complex criteria make case management time-consuming and grant receipt uncertain, which limits the potential strength of the existing system.
Access to information about relevant opportunities shapes aspirations and plans to pursue higher education. There are considerable differences in how young people from lower socio-economic and higher socio-economic backgrounds think about their future in Portugal. One-third (33%) of students who aspire to work in high-skilled jobs do not expect to complete higher education. This misinformation gap is greater for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds than for students from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Even though career counsellors – in the form of psychologists – are required to be available in all public secondary schools in Portugal, just 18% of students in the most disadvantaged schools have formally scheduled career advice, compared with 39% in the most advantaged schools.
A special focus on drop-out rates finds that there is significant variation across fields of study after the first year in Portugal. Meanwhile, almost one-in-four (24%) students report feeling like they do not belong in higher education. Most higher education institutions in Portugal provide tutoring and mentoring services to their students to combat drop-out rates, financed by the EU-funded national Programme for Promoting Success and Reducing Drop-out Rates. The same funding has fuelled a momentum for innovation in integrating advanced analytical tools in the work to anticipate the need for and customise the design of student support. While progress has been made, challenges remain in identifying good practice and enabling institutions to adopt successful policies as the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility funding is set to end by 2026.