Mercado é coisa de Satanás?

Abstract

This article deals with complicated and controversial issues that are a consequence of the private sector entering higher education.
This point is especially delicate when this happens with profit-making corporations.Unfortunately, rough ideologies obstruct a large part of these discussions. There is not pragmatism and there is a lack of analytic vision of what is going on.
In any case, the private sector does not deserve to be demonized. This happens both with private non-profit and profit-making enterprises.
Moreover, the differences tend to be relatively small. Good and bad institutions exist in every single legal option.
In the case of profit-making higher education, in Brazil and in other countries, there is not enough experience to make further generalizations.
Private institutions, and good public institutions, try to “sell” more, to gain visibility and to identify good market niches.
All want to reduce their costs and to increase their revenue, i. e. to increase their profit. Unlike state-owned, no private institution can spend more than what it collects. Compared to state-owned institution, private institutions tend to be better managed and to be more efficient. But not always. Non-profit private institutions tend to operate in deficit-generating areas, because they use cross-subsidies. But there are also false non-profit institutions.
To sum up, there are private profit-making institutions that are outstanding (and some others, not that much). Still, the biggest difference is between competent and incompetent institutions, and no in whether or not it is profit making.