“Here at home education is very welcome”: meaning of higher education for university scholarship students

Abstract:

Facing a process of democratization of Brazilian higher education, by means of public policies for access and permanence of students, especially low-income ones, and the assumption that the constitution of individuals, according to their social and family background, impacts their educational trajectories, it was asked: what is the meaning of taking an university course for students which are benefited by these policies? To this end, it was performed a research taking on students who receive scholarships (full or partial), in a community higher education institution, located in Santa Catarina, in order to know the social condition of these students and the meaning of higher education for them. The results, supported by quantitative and qualitative information, deriving from the literature, the database of the investigated university and the interviews with scholarship students, show that most of these students are pragmatic regarding the higher education, which is considered a social mobility accessory of desire to overcome the social condition of their own families.

Keywords: higher education; scholarship; democratization of education; community university