Perspective on the future, a recurrent theme for young people, was the object of this study, which aimed to compare the expectations of students of public and private schools. An exploratory study was conducted with 296 students from primary to high school in both institutions. They were asked to answer the scale "How you see your future" and discursively write how they imagined their future, which were analyzed through tests of hypotheses and categorization procedures. We observed that students differ in few items (such as entering university or trusting the country' leaders), while the majority of expectations are similar (such as graduating and getting a job that enables them to have quality of life). These data were also found in the discursive question. The conclusion is that students from public and private schools differ in few issues and have similar expectations about the way they idealize their future.
educational aspirations; professional interests; students; qualitative methodology; statistical measurement
