Financiamento estudantil nas instituições privado-mercantis de ensino superior no Brasil: o caso da Kroton Educacional

Abstract

The present study investigates new forms of student financing of higher education used by Kroton, Private Student Parceling (PEP) and PraValer. Its general objective is to analyze these two new forms of financing in the context of the financialization of education. It is hypothesized that the Student Financing Fund (Fies), student financing guaranteed by the State, was a policy that prompted the privatization, expansion and financialization of higher education in Brazil, which paved the way for these new forms of financing. Methodologically it is a case study based on historical-dialectical materialism. It uses bibliographic and documentary research which has analyzed documents such as: the financial and accounting statements that Kroton provides on its website; the TCU reports; data on expansion published by INEP; news and articles published by electronic newspapers from 2015 to 2018. It points towards a conclusion which confirms our hypothesis, i.e., that Fies acts as a contradictory policy, since it makes access to higher education possible, while it strengthens the privatization and financialization of this level of education. In addition, after the redesign by which the Fies went through in 2015, the process of expansion of the private-commercial sector, through private student credit lines, is intensified, since PEP and PraValer, credit lines offered by Kroton Educacional, are formulated in this scenario of financial unsustainability of the Fies. Thus, Kroton Educacional presents more latently its financial facet as it distances itself from the educational and pedagogical processes and acts in the sale of credit / finances. PraValer and PEP, in general, are programs that use the omission of information and the association with the conditions provided by the Public Financing Program to stimulate the sale of credit. In addition, the advertisements by the PEP and PraValer lines are misleading insofar as they advertise no interest and no guarantor, a fact that becomes explicit when analyzing the contracts. The PEP and PraValer programs are openly targeting the low-income population, and the conditions offered by the programs suggest that students and their families may find it difficult to pay off the debt they incur, so that we can say that this proliferation of student financing is a responsible educational product to inaugurate a new moment for private HEIs insofar as it intensifies financial relations in the sector