Nos últimos anos, o ensino superior brasileiro tem enfrentado inúmeros problemas referentes aos processos de turbulência econômica, ciclos de recessão e redução de custos para a manutenção das instituições, horizonte agravado pelos efeitos da pandemia da COVID-19. Este cenário reacendeu a discussão sobre a importância da ampliação e os impasses para a manutenção dos programas de permanência estudantil universitária. Este trabalho se propõe a analisar, a partir de revisão da literatura e a discussão de dados secundários, a construção das políticas públicas de assistência e permanência estudantil no país a partir da implementação do Programa Nacional de Assistência Estudantil (PNAES), debatendo seus efeitos nas trajetórias discentes e abordando os problemas atualmente enfrentados visando a permanência, a conclusão dos cursos e a equidade no interior do sistema.

This study examines responses to the COVID-19 pandemic among different sectors and types of institutions in the Brazilian higher education system. We aim to analyse how institutions faced the pandemic; what policies or institutional actions were proposed; and by which institutions/institutional types? What rationales justify these proposals? Are there similarities among actions? Based on the concepts of institutional logics and embedded institutional agency, empirical narratives collected in documents from institutions and previous research were organised to make sense of otherwise disparate initiatives. Drawing upon the literature on institutional positioning in higher education and using the latest Brazilian national higher education census, we built a typology of institutions focusing on four dimensions associated with policy responses to the pandemic: the educational profile, research involvement, structural characteristics of institutions, and social inclusion policies. We further complement the data set on the institutional landscape of higher education with institutional documents, interviews, and reports, as well as the extensive news coverage collected by students and researchers at Laboratory for Research into Higher Education (LAPES), in order to provide the empirical elements for the analysis of policies and institutional actions.