[scardine]

C'mon, the Latin America's biggest and most populous nation remains a long way behind the OECD average and in most cases lags behind most of its Latin American neighbors.

Research in Brazil is a joke, as anything else related to education. Privately funded research is almost non-existent and public universities have typically a 2:1 relation between staff and students - all of them are pretty inefficient. Private universities are expensive scams.

[guspe]

With all its deficiencies, USP is a top university and produces valuable researches. That's no joke at all. Just look at the Lattes curriculum of both its faculty and graduates. MIT, Harvard, Princeton —those are awesome universities but they are expensive too, not a thing most people can afford. Studying at USP costs nothing. That's quite an achievement. I don't mean to be overlook the problems. I'm just pointing out an important difference.

[hcarvalhoalves]

> Studying at USP costs nothing.

It just doesn't cost for the (few) students themselves.

[guspe]

And isn't that remarkable? I think it is.

[hcarvalhoalves]

Given how heavy taxation is, how many chairs it offers (10k) for the whole country, and how unequal is the access to those chairs for the average citizen, I don't find it as remarkable.

[rbanffy]

It's remarkable you think there is something like free money.

USP tuition is paid for by taxpayers.

[guspe]

Wait, careful with the strawman there. Yes, USP is funded by taxpayers but the students themselves don't have to pay anything. The reasoning behind this choice is that the cost of a student in that University can be shared by everyone because the value of the knowledge produced there is also shared by everyone. People who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford college-level education are given the chance to study.

It's a decision that is aligned to the principles of social democracy. You could argue against it, take a more neoliberal stance, but that's not the point. My point is that USP is trying to do something different.

I wish I knew more about how private universities in US are funded. I have a feeling that aside from the tuition students pay they still receive some sort of aid from the government.

True, everything has it price. But it's also true that free market is not really free.