QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BRAZIL: PERFORMANCE OF CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES IN THE LIGHT OF ACADEMIC RANKINGS, STATE CLASSIFIED INDEXES AND TABLES

Quality higher education is a dynamic concept that has to adapt to a changing world. This article aims to analyze the Brazilian Catholic universities in order to study their trends in terms of institutional quality, from their performance in national academic rankings, indexes and rankings (Rankintacs) at state and private levels. To achieve the objective of this study, a bibliographic-documentary research including analysis of performance indicators in national Rankintacs, including qualitative and quantitative analysis through statistical criteria was performed. Currently, Brazil has 19 Catholic confessional universities and their performances were approached from the National Rankings, prepared by the state regulatory agency (MEC/INEP) and those promoted by the private sector, Folha University Ranking (RUF) and Student Guide. Although Catholic universities have traditionally been identified as high quality institutions, occupying prominent positions among the best universities in the country, many of them ahead of large public universities, Rankintacs reveal in terms of quality, great diversity and heterogeneity, with renowned universities. Catholic with not so favorable results, identified with poor performance.