Abstract:

In the last decades Portugal experienced a significant change regarding higher education admission and participation, as it passed from a little more than 24000 students in 1960/1961 to round 377000 students in 2007/2008. In broad terms, we can name as main factors the significant quantitative growth, the development of post-graduate education, the expansion of the higher education network to all the regions in the country, the implementation of a private education system and the concession of pedagogical-scientific, administrative and financing autonomy to the public higher education institutions.
Given this pressure and in the scope of cost-sharing, the several governments reflected upon the implementation of a policy of tuition fee application. Portugal has followed up the higher education funding policies in the scope of the international tendencies, mainly concerning cost-sharing. A cost-sharing policy has been identified for two last decades, by the introductions of tuition fees in public education and policies and the development of private education since the 1980s, changing the burden of the funding the Higher Education in the direction of the students and their families.
Nevertheless the government commitment in terms of financing higher education is decreasing during the last decade and in the framework of the international crisis it is decreasing even more. For many students and families it is becoming difficult to face the costs of Higher Education as well as the student living costs, especially with the impact of the global financial crisis.
The accessibility notion does not entirely give us the information whether students face or do not face financial barriers to attend HE. Subsequently, there is a concept – affordability – that concerns student ability to pay for their studies, that is, what we can call economical accessibility which means having the necessary resources that enable HE attendance.
The paper aims at introducing the Portuguese HE situation with focus on the financial and social support policies with an analysis of the recent evolution of student accessibility and affordability, comparing the costs of the students and the new grant and loan systems adopted recently.

Keywords:

Higher Education, funding, accessibility, affordability.