Desigualdade e juventude: reflexões acerca de critérios adotados pelo plano nacional de assistência estudantil no Brasil

: The National Student Assistance Plan - PNAES - emerges in the context of expansion and democratiza- tion of higher education in Brazil. It was created by the Ordinance of the Ministry of Education No. 39, from December 12, 2007. The target audience for This plan is students regularly enrolled in undergraduate courses, coming from public education system, and with per capita family income of less or equal to 1.5 minimum wages. These criteria tend to classify as equal young people who come from the most different family matrices. Notably, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Thus, based on the contradictions presented above, the effort of this article focuses on reflecting on how the plan emerges in the context of expansion of higher education, discussing possible discrepancies as a result of a target audience design without greater concern for its internal differences. To this end, through both conceptual discussion and data analysis of the National Performance Exam in the years 2015 to 2017, we seek to demonstrate that there is no equality between students of the Federal Higher Education System within the profile adopted by the plan.