New Jersey Devils fire head coach
blursd: “Things are in pretty bad shape in Brazil right now. The only way to have a better life in Brazil is to go to college, but college is very expensive,” said Alvarenga, speaking in Portuguese through a translator. THAT, doesn't make sense to me - regarding college being "expensive." I'm originally from the United States, but I also lived in Brazil for a number a years. You see, in Brazil, one has to take a college entrance exam called the "Vestibular." It's kind of like the SAT ... on steroids. Literally EVERYTHING hinges on not just passing the Vestibular, but placing high enough on the test (vis-a-vis other test takers that year) to secure entrance to a university. The thing is though, if you manage to score high enough you'll not only be admitted to a corresponding university to begin your studies ... your college tuition, and other necessary expenses (books, housing, food, etc) is also paid for by the state. So, if one passes the Vestibular, and scores high enough to go to college ... you don't really have to pay for much of anything (other than things you might want to make your life easier/nicer). There are for profit schools in Brazll, but they're not very common, and they're almost exclusively religious schools (and pretty much almost exclusively Jesuit ... aka Catholic). Then his statement would be fairly accurate. Those schools are expensive, even by American standards. They're pretty much there to cater to upper-class children who didn't score well enough to secure entrance into state run university - they're the only ones who can afford to pay the cost of going to a private college in Brazil. Private colleges are fairly commonplace in the United States. In fact, many of our nation's top rated academic insitutions are ... private colleges (Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Cornell, etc ...). The so-called "Ivy League" schools (with the exception of Penn State). In Brazil, however, private don't really have the same reputation. The top academic institutions in Brazil are ALL state-run universities. Going to a private college in Brazil is somewhat akin to going to an online-only college in the United States.
1.3k
