Persistence in higher education: the perspective of professors and students

The present article presents the qualitative advances of a quanti-quali type study based on focus groups, and the use of Discursive textual analysis for its processing, analyzes the perspectives of five professors and five students of an institution in the South of Brazil, on the student's persistence in higher education, taking into account, by the factors pointed out in the literature, the issue of involvement as one of the most important aspects in the studies for persistence. However, our analysis also demonstrates a highly significant finding that is the issue of dissociation between higher education systems as a key variable of academic failure. Consequently, this points us to the need for human resources training and continuing professor training for student follow-up. The responses of professors and students allow us to recognize the importance of creating a link between them, in which the students feel recognized from the follow-up of their professors.