The influence of a university in the generation of a regional pole of higher education

Abstract

Higher education has shown a surprising growth in recent years in Brazil. With this growth, public universities become teaching reference and attract students to the cities where they are located. Sometimes these institutions cannot attend the demand of all students. Thus we find new institutions formed to attract students and courses in areas not offered by public universities or to meet the unmet demand by vague by public universities. This paper aims to show the influence of the Federal University of Santa Maria - UFSM in creating a pole of higher education in Santa Maria. For this, assesses statistically the number of undergraduate classroom, students and professors of these courses, to confirm the existence of a correlation between variables. The results show that the UFSM was influential in the development of a center of higher education in the town of Santa Maria, concluding the importance of a public institution of higher education to the cities.