Many of the students at public universities are young people in extreme poverty.
At the University of Costa Rica (UCR), during the first cycle of 2016, students from families in extreme poverty whose monthly income is 72,000 colones, accounted for 17.44%, which is equal to 2,576 students.
These people are part of the students population with scholarships, where there are more than 14,700 students. They also have access to complementary benefits, such as an economic amount for career costs, food, transportation or housing, book loans, dental care, optometry, exemption from tuition fees, among others.
Ana María Hernández, vice dean of Vida Estudiantil at the National University (UNA) declared that near 40% of the population with a scholarship is in extreme poverty and those students only have the econonómic support granted by the university.
In the Costa Rican Institute of Technology (TEC), authorities stated that 165 students are part of this vulnerable population.
Hernández said that this support is essential for these people because 50% of the university population come from the middle sector and 12% come from the upper sector. There is a 90% of the population located in the lower-middle sector. In addition, as explained by Hernández, most of these students come from public schools and from 4-member families, in which just one person works or they are raised by a single mother.