Produced with data from the Brazilian Unified Selection System (Sisu), a study shows that the current composition of UFMG’s student body is increasingly more representative of the Brazilian population.

Almost half – 49.3% – of the students admitted to UFMG’s undergraduate programs in the first academic semester of 2018 declared themselves black or mestizos. The percentage is practically double that registered in 2008 (26.75%), a year that preceded the beginning of affirmative action policies at UFMG. The data are in a report on the profile of students enrolled at UFMG in the last decade, prepared by the Office of Undergraduate Studies’ Statistical Department.

The study also shows that there was a surge in the number of students whose family income is one to two minimum wages: in 2014, these students accounted for 11.4% of the total, and in 2018, 18.2%. In addition, the study also indicated that one third of UFMG students have a family income of two to five minimum wages, making up the most frequent socioeconomic category.

This analysis also indicates a change in the profiles of parents and mothers of students entering the University. Data on parental schooling showed that, in the last decade, parents of more than 50% of the students had no undergraduate degree. In 2008, 46.46% of the fathers and 47.29% of the mothers had an undergraduate degree. In 2018, these percentages fell, respectively, to 36.4% and 45.2%.

“UFMG is more inclusive, due to an articulated and consistent work that aims at contributing to social transformation and at diminishing inequalities. It has fulfilled its social role, democratizing in a systematic way the access to higher education”, analyzes UFMG’s President, Professor Sandra Almeida. She points out that, according to the official census of 2010, 53.5% of the people in Minas Gerais state declared themselves black or mestizos. In Brazil, the percentage was 50.7%.

Professor Benigna Oliveira, Dean for Undergraduate Studies, evaluates that this process has enabled the composition of the academic community to reflect more faithfully the Brazilian population. The increase in the number of students whose parents did not have an undergraduate degree and those whose family income is between one and two minimum salaries reinforces the weight of policies to democratize access to higher education. She notes that these students “will not only have a technical education, but also a critical and civic education of excellence. At the same time, the University is changing with the diversity of its academic community and benefiting from the plurality of mindsets and experiences”.

According to Professor Almeida, it is fundamental to the University to learn about the profile of its students, in order to understand the impact of the democratization of access to higher education and reflect on the policies that contemplate them appropriately. According to her, this kind of analysis contributes to the definition and  accuracy in the proposition of academic policies. “The purpose of these surveys is to offer subsidies for planning and sustaining admission, reception and permanence policies, based on the demands that have arisen after UFMG joined Sisu”, states  Professor Almeida.

One of these demands is the strengthening of the student assistance policy, essential for their effective inclusion and permanence at the University, whose resources went from R$22.5 million in 2013 to R$37.3 million in 2017, a period in which the admission of students from public schools increased significantly. In 2013 – the first year of implementation of the Federal Act 12,711, which established racial and socioeconomic quotas and replaced UFMG’s Bonus Program – students from public schools accounted for 44.2%, a percentage that increased to 55.3% in the first semester of 2018.

Trends

The survey reveals other changes in the profile of students, apparently prompted by the University’s affiliation to Sisu in 2014: a rise in the number of students from other states and a downward trend in the admission of women, which reached 55.8% in 2013, fell to 50.8% in 2014, and to 48.5% in 2018.

Although most of the selected candidates in UFMG come from Minas Gerais, this number has decreased since the adoption of Sisu: from 93% in 2013 to approximately 80% in 2018. In 2018, the second federal state with the highest percentage of candidates approved in the first call was São Paulo (more than 10%). Compared to the modalities of quotas, the modality of broad selection had the lowest number of candidates living in Minas Gerais: 73.4%. In the quota modality 3, which includes self-declaration of race, and in modality 1, which includes gross per capita family income equal to or less than 1.5 minimum wage, the percentage of students living in Minas Gerais was way higher – 92.8% and 90.9% respectively.

“The report also showed that the admission of freshmen from other states is more common in the modality of broad selection than in quotas. With Sisu, UFMG has managed to attract more people from other states. However, in most cases, these candidates are from a higher income family, because mobility is difficult for those who are more socioeconomically vulnerable. This reinforces the importance of inclusion and permanence policies”, analyzes the Deputy Dean for Undergraduate Studies, Professor Bruno Teixeira.

Under the Federal Act 12,711 of 2012, universities and federal institutes must save 50% of places for students who have completed high school in public schools. Half of these places are destined to students with monthly gross family income, per person, of up to 1.5 minimum salaries. The remaining places are divided among students self-declared blacks, mestizos or indigenous and those with disabilities.

Regarding the question on place of residence answered by freshmen, there was a reduction in the percentage of candidates enrolled in UFMG residing in Belo Horizonte: from 68% in 2009 to 50.4% in the first semester of 2018. And the number of students from Minas Gerais countryside increased from 14.3% in 2014 to 22.2% in the first semester of 2018.

As for the female presence in UFMG, in the distribution by field of study, engineering and hard sciences presented the highest percentage of male students, with 73.4% and 66.5%, respectively. The areas that registered the highest percentages of female students were the humanities (61.1%), life sciences (60.2%) and health sciences (59.6%). In applied social sciences the percentage of female students was 48%, in linguistics and arts 54.4% and 55.4% in agricultural sciences.

Minimum grades

The minimum grades required to enter these reserved places in 2018 correspond, on average, to 87.6% of the minimum grade for admission to the modality of broad selection, considering all undergraduate courses offered by UFMG. This number coincides with percentages of 10% and 15% adopted by UFMG from 2009 to 2012, when the Bonus Program was in force.

For the eight types of quotas, including people with disabilities, the cut-off grade represents an average of 88% of the grade in the wide competition. “It is a high average with a not relevant difference. And this number validates the Bonus Program, implemented at UFMG before the quotas were established by federal law” says Professor Teixeira.

Language Proficiency

The percentage of students who declared not being able to read in any foreign language grew from approximately 16% in 2014 to almost 25% in the first semester of 2018. “These figures reinforce the importance of UFMG’s language policy recently approved by the Council of Teaching, Research and Extension” says Professor Oliveira.

This policy consolidates efforts of linguistic training traditionally undertaken by UFMG, such as the language courses offered by the Extension Center of the School of Language and Literature, in which students can take courses on Portuguese for academic purposes, foreign languages, as well as the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras). The Languages without Borders Program, coordinated by the Office of International Affairs, is also part of this policy. The democratic access to opportunities to learn foreign languages and the international circulation of the intellectual, scientific, artistic and cultural productions developed at UFMG are some of the main principles of this initiative.

UFMG in Sisu

In 2000, UFMG received a total of 155,386 applications for its 6,339 places in undergraduate courses. In the last year, before the adoption of Sisu (2013), 60,273 candidates registered to UFMG entrance exam.

From 2011 to 2013, UFMG used the grade of the National High School Exam (Enem) to replace the first phase of its entrance exam. In 2014, UFMG joined Sisu and adopted the Enem grade as the sole selection criterion for most undergraduate courses, except for the Visual Arts, Animation and Digital Arts, Dance, Fashion Design, Music and Theater. In those programs the second phase of the selection process was maintained and candidates are supposed to take a specific exam testing their skills in the chosen area.

Ana Rita Araújo

Translation: Amanda Nascimento Batista