Abstract:

The financing of public higher education is now one of the most important problems facing both the higher education institutions and their respective students. Given the decrease in funding from the state, public institutions of higher education are forced to seek monetary funds in the market, including by requiring fees to students. Students, in turn, face to a very difficult economic situation of Portuguese economy and before new requirements by public institutions of higher education, living moments of crisis that hampers their time at university.
In these circumstances, we think it is important to investigate the living conditions of students, make them known, particularly amongst governments and civil.
So, in this article we analyze the costs of Higher Education (HE) of the Portuguese students – educational costs and living costs, according to Jonhstone typology (1986). The data that will be presented comes up from three nationwide surveys to a representative sample of Portuguese HE students, applied on 1995, 2005 and 2011 by the authors, once there are no official investigation on the theme.
We will discuss the elitism of higher education in Portugal, although the democratization of Portuguese society initiated in 1975, after the Democratic Revolution and we compare the accessibility and the affordability of Portuguese HE students with the one of their European colleagues whose countries also are living a financial crisis.

Keywords:

HE student strata, HE student educational costs, financing support, HE affordability.