Students return to the street on November 18 against tuition increase

ANDstudents of higher education will return to the street on 18 November for a national demonstration in Lisbon against the government proposal to thaw the value of tuition fees from the school year 2027/2028.

The national demonstration, convened by academic associations and federations that are part of the Student Association Movement, takes place four weeks after the protest that brought together more than a hundred students in front of the government headquarters in Lisbon.

The concentration is scheduled for 14:30 in Largo do Carmo, to the Assembly of the Republic, where the marathon of votes begins on the same day in the specialty of the proposal of the State Budget for 2027.

The government's proposal includes defrosting the value of tuition fees, which have not changed since 2020, in undergraduate degrees, Professional Higher Technical Courses (CteSP) and Masters indispensable for the exercise of a professional activity.

The measure provides that the maximum tuition fee is equal to the ceiling fixed at EUR 2026/2027 (EUR 697), plus the average change in the Consumer Price Index (IPC), without housing, recorded in 2026.

The government had already proposed the defrosting of tuition fees last year, but the intention was halted by the opposition which approved, in the discussion in the specialty of the State Budget for 2026, a proposal from the PS that kept the maximum value of EUR 697.

The Socialists now propose to freeze tuition fees in all study cycles and propose to limit tuition fees to EUR 2,500.

The freezing of tuition fees was approved in 2016 at the time on a proposal from the CFP under the State Budget for 2017.

The figure was then set at EUR 1,067,85 and has suffered successive reductions, and since 2020/2021 it has been at EUR 697.