Students' Preferences and Needs in Portuguese Higher Education

In Portugal, there is a diversified higher education system comprising some 160 institutions: universities, polytechnics and isolated schools, public or private, with a total enrolment of some 350,000 students. This article presents the analysis of the results of questionnaires which were completed in 2004 by students entering higher education for the first time so as to understand their perceived needs and aspirations and how they chose their institution/study programme.
In the last few years, there has been a decline in the number of candidates to higher education — mainly due to demography — which created strong institutional competition. Therefore it is important to understand the reasons behind students' choices, perceived needs and aspirations and how students assess the capacity of different institutions/programmes to fulfil these. It is also relevant to understand how their choices may be conditioned by factors such as their socio-economic and cultural background, employability prospects, other available information, gender and type of institution and study programme.