Expansion and regionalization of higher education in Portugal in recent decades: a contradictory path

Abstract

If a few decades ago there was a widespread idea that education, particularly higher education, played a fundamental role in the economic and social development of a country, today, scientific research has proven that this idea was right: the development of a country is dependent on the development of education. As a result of this perspective, the financial effort of most countries to expand their education was notorious, in particular higher education, which, in itself, is an indispensable factor for development. Several studies have shown this strong relationship between education, higher education and development or, at the very least, economic growth, which came to forge the “theory of human capital” that views education as an activity with, in fact, quite high costs, but whose profitability, both in individual and family terms, as a result of higher levels of qualification providing better wages and social status, or at the community level, due to the competitive advantages that a more qualified population provides to a territory, as well as the non-measurable positive externalities that it entails , justifies and requires that investment. This article presents the path of the expansion of higher education in Portugal, through the regional distribution of the network of higher education establishments and the perceived impact of investment in higher education, seeking to identify, over the last decades, the regional distribution of higher education institutions (HEIs) as well as the regional distribution of students and graduates, to which the available information (number of HEIs, students, graduates, budget) is added by district (administrative division of the country) and by geographic region ( coast, interior and autonomous regions) while questioning the effects of public HEI funding policies on the growth of institutions. The article ends with some reflections on the process of expansion/distribution of higher education, particularly on the regional distribution of this level of education.