The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) changed its rules to allow its graduate students to have a job outside their field of study and receive income from state-level benefits. The aim is to make the Capes scholarship program more financially attractive.
Previously, Capes scholarship recipients were prohibited from having other sources of income and were required to devote themselves exclusively to their studies.
Capes president Mercedes Bustamante said in a statement that the new rules “will be able to attract to graduate school people who are already in the job market, and in this way create new links between academia and other sectors of society.”
The new rules go into effect on October 1 and give universities more flexibility to set their own rules.
Capes offered more than 93,000 graduate scholarships for the period from March 2023 to February 2024. Values currently range from BRL 2,100 (USD 438) per month for master’s students to BRL 5,200 (USD 1,085) for postdoctoral students, which is far from competitive with jobs in the private sector for people with such academic credentials.
By way of comparison, the federal minimum wage is currently BRL 1,320 (USD 275).
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