Trajectories in higher education: ProUni in focus

Abstract

Abstract Trajectories in higher education and the University for All Program (ProUni) are the central theme of this paper. The research question was: To what extent were some factors experienced during university difficulties in the academic trajectory of ProUni and non-ProUni graduates? The approach was quantitative with an explanatory goal. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis. The research subjects were 197 higher education graduates from a Southern Brazil nonprofit institution who entered in 2005. 57 were ProUni scholarship holders and 140 were non-ProUni. Results indicate that the highest percentage of graduates who worked during college were not scholarship holders. A T-test was performed after creating the scales for external (p = 0.19) and internal (p = 0.66) factors, indicating that in both factors there was no statistically significant difference between being a ProUni scholarship holder or not and the difficulties presented during their academic trajectory. Results indicate the need for studies involving the set of higher education graduates in order to better understand the difficulties faced by both groups of students in their academic trajectories.