Historical series Itaú Unibanco and Federal University of Maranhão announce first list of quota students selected to receive aid for university attendance
The bank will award 129 scholarships through the Potências Program (Potencies Program) – Itaú Unibanco Support for University Attendance, in the amount of R$ 964.00 per month, with the aim of reducing school drop-out among black, brown and indigenous students from the six units of the Federal University of Maranhão.
Maranhão, September 2023 – Itaú Unibanco, in partnership with the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA) and the Josué Montello Foundation, announced the first list of students selected to receive a financial scholarship, worth R$964.00 per month, which will be paid out over the course of the scholars’ undergraduate years. The initiative is part of the Potências Program, created by the bank to support quota students in their undergraduate journey. The bank will award a total of 129 scholarships to students who entered university through the Quota Law and in accordance with socioeconomic criteria. In this first stage, because the number of students admitted according to the criteria exceeded the number of scholarships available, the beneficiaries were selected by means of a draw conducted by the University. The students received financial support at the beginning of August, which was backdated to March, when the academic year began.
Luciana Nicola, Director of Institutional Relations and Sustainability at Itaú Unibanco, emphasizes that public-private collaboration is fundamental to building a future in which education is a tool for transformation and empowerment, opening doors to opportunities that were previously inaccessible. “Black, brown and indigenous students face systemic obstacles that limit their access to quality education and development opportunities. Granting financial aid to these groups is crucial to promoting racial equity and combating the inequalities historically rooted in our education system and society as a whole. We want to help correct this disparity,” she said.
The 129 scholarships cover six different UFMA campuses, located in the municipalities of São Luís, Bacabal, Balsas, Chapadinha, Imperatriz and Pinheiro. The students selected in these locations, aged between 18 and 49, are enrolled in 38 different courses in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Biology, Health, Technology and Exact Sciences. The majority (60.7%) identify themselves as female and 39.3% as male; 32.4% identify themselves as black, 66.7% as brown and 0.9% as indigenous.
In addition to providing financial support, Itaú will set up academic monitoring centers throughout the scholars’ undergraduate journey, in collaboration with the Federal University of Maranhão, observing indicators such as attendance, academic performance, socioeconomic situation and dropout, promoting the development of academic studies in the quota population at the institution. The aim is to encourage the production of data to support the debate on the construction of public policies to promote racial equity in education.
“We have already carried out a pilot program at the University of São Paulo (USP), launched in 2018, with 90 quota scholars. The results indicated a notable reduction in dropouts to just 2%, compared to 20% of the quota group that didn’t receive the scholarship. For students who did not enter through quotas, the dropout rate was 13%. Another important finding was the higher academic performance of the scholarship recipients, compared to those who did not receive the scholarship and those who entered through the conventional selection process, the Fuvest test,” concludes Luciana Nicola.