Higher education: 51 thousand new students entered and 12 thousand were left out – News

According to data released today by the General Directorate of Higher Education, 50,964 students were placed in the national access competition for the 2020/2021 academic year, which starts this week in most Higher Education Institutions (IES).

They are 15% more than last year and 21% more than in 2015, according to data from the General Directorate of Higher Education.

However, there were also more students who decided to apply (23% more than last year) and this year almost 12 thousand did not apply, being able to compete for the 2nd phase that starts on Monday with more than six thousand available vacancies.

That is, this year there were 62,930 students trying their luck, of which 11,966 did not get a place in university or polytechnic education.

Of the total number of candidates for the first phase of the contest, 82% were placed and 84% were admitted to one of the first three options.

Just over half got a place in the course and the institution they wanted: 51% were placed in their first option.

In percentage terms, it is a little lower than last year (53% of the students were in the 1st option), but in absolute terms it represents an increase of around 23 thousand to 25 thousand students.

Of the 50,000 first-year students, just over 30,000 go to university education (30,671) while the polytechnic institutions will receive about 20,000 new students (20,293).

Both universities and polytechnic institutes saw an increase of about 3,000 students compared to last year: universities increased from 27,280 to 30,671 and polytechnic education from 17,220 to 20,293 students.

The Lisbon and Porto regions continue to account for almost half of the new students: this year there are 23,916 first-year students, which means an increase of about 3,000 more than last year.

There are also more and more students choosing institutions located in regions with less demographic pressure: this year there will be 12,314 students (20% more than last year).

Additionally, nearly 10,000 students chose a course at institutions located in these regions as their first choice, representing a 28% increase compared to last year’s competition.

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