Living in the interior of the country and belonging to a low-income family are two of the conditions that most unbalance young people’s access to Higher Education. The conclusions of the study of Edulog (Centro de Reflexão da Fundação Belmiro de Azevedo), which made the DN headline last Monday, February 23, are easy to explain: students who live in areas of the Interior have less academic offer in their regions and, inevitably, many end up continuing their studies far from home.
However, the number of those who are able to do so tends to decrease, as the cost of accommodation has skyrocketed in recent years and has become, in many cases, impossible to accommodate within family budgets, particularly affecting households (and students) with lower incomes. More than a new paradigm, which is not, in any way, the study, it highlights that this is a “persistent” reality, which demonstrates that the specific measures that may have been taken to correct inequalities have not yielded results.
On the contrary, the problem gets worse. The rise in rent prices in Portugal naturally affects accommodation for displaced students. According to data from the Student Accommodation Observatoryin November 2025 the average price in the country for a room for students was 410 euros. Going back to consult these reports until November 2021, it appears that the average value was then 267 euros – that is, in the space of four years it increased by 143 euros (+53.6%).
Faced with this sharp rise, the spectrum of families constrained by the financing of their children’s studies is no longer limited to those with lower salaries, as it also affects the choices of households in the so-called middle class, who are equally pressured by the increase in payments or house rent, the cost of living in general and the tax burden applied to them. In other words, the inequality generated by financial conditions affects a growing number of students.
A few weeks ago I participated in a conversation on the topic. I remembered the time when I was also a displaced student and needed money for everything: food, school supplies, clothes, transportation, etc. And I recognized that I had the advantage of doing this at a time when the cost of accommodation was incomparably lower than today – the most I paid for a room, in a district in the interior of the country, was R$75 per month.
Following this conversation, one of those present in the room went to the daughter and said: “You already know: you can study whatever you want, but it has to be close to home.” “Conditioned ambition” – now here is an increasingly common reality. The social elevator is slow and there is no maintenance to speed it up.
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