O Programa de Assistência Estudantil da Universidade Federal da Paraíba no contexto de intensificação do ajuste fiscal Brasileiro

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the Student Assistance Program of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) in the context of the intensification of the Brazilian fiscal adjustment after 2015. The apprehension of this phenomenon was carried out from a perspective of totality. For this purpose, the Policy of Education and Student Assistance was included as the central categories of study, whose analysis referred to discussions of other subcategories, such as, State, neoliberalism, capitalist crisis and fiscal adjustment. These theoretical categories were explored from a bibliographic survey. Regarding the collection of data on the Student Assistance Program of UFPB, priority was given to the documentary research technique, in the period of 2015 to 2020. The research approach was quant qualitative, including an investigation on the process of students’ access to the Student Assistance Program of UFPB, the program budget, the coverage and distribution of the aid and, finally, the identification of the socioeconomic profile of the students contemplated with the student aid of the said university. The epistemological aspect of data analysis followed Karl Marx's critical, materialistic, historical and dialectical method. The study reveals that the process of dismantling higher education in the context of the capitalist crisis, the resurgence of neoliberalism and fiscal adjustment, is extensive to the policy of Student Assistance. The budget cuts and constraints, intensified with the advent of devices such as EC No. 95/2016, have caused a misstep between supply and demand for Student Assistance services, which has consequently led UFPB to centralize its actions in elementary areas, which in turn refers to the supply of students' material needs, such as food and housing. Associated with this measure, there is a stiffening in the criteria for admission and permanence of students in student assistance. Therefore, an intensification was perceived regarding the selectivity and focus of the service in the selection notices. As a result of this process, UFPB's student aid mainly includes students exposed to high levels of vulnerability and social risk, whose per capita income is far below the income limits defined by National Student Assistance Program.