Emenda Constitucional nº 95/2016 e universidades federais brasileiras: implicações do orçamento nas matrículas

Abstract

The execution of public resources is intrinsically related to the need for compliance with the efficiency of public policies and guidelines. The Brazilian Federal Higher Education system has experienced significant expansion in recent years through expansion programs, which accompanied the demand for results from society. The debate on higher education spending has gained significant contours after the enactment of Constitutional Amendment (EC) Nº 95/2016, known as the "Expenditure Ceiling", which established the New Fiscal Regime in Brazil and implied the limitation of public spending. The issue is a recurring theme within the academic community, which expresses concerns about the financial sustainability and consequent functioning of these institutions. On the one hand, these institutions serve as the population's primary access point to free public federal higher education; on the other hand, their operation is almost entirely funded by Union funds, making them subject to the limitations imposed by EC Nº 95/2016. The situation has been the target of criticism and has put higher education in check in reaching the goals of the National Education Plan, especially with the increase in the number of undergraduate enrollments in the public segment. The present work proposes to identify the eventual impact of the Spending Ceiling, between 2013 and 2019, and the behavior of the number of undergraduate enrollments, also applying efficiency verification in relation to enrollments. The results show that, although there is a downward trend in the discretionary budget available to the federal universities, enrollments continued to grow, albeit subtly. As for the results on efficiency, 49 universities showed to be efficient, maintaining and/or increasing the average undergraduate enrollments when analyzing the periods before and after the EC Nº 95/2016. The investigation suggests that the implementation of the New Fiscal Regime may not yet have produced concrete effects that could interfere with the number of enrollments. In other words, the budget does present a downward trend, but the continuous decrease observed may not have been enough to have a decisive impact on enrollments.