Project Info
Principal Investigators
Cátia Batista (Nova SBE)
Ana Balcão Reis (Nova SBE)
Pedro Freitas (Nova SBE)
Gonçalo Lima (EUI)
Project Coordination
Gonçalo Gameiro
David Costa
Funding
Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF)
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)
Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN)
About this Project
Every year large numbers of students from Cape Verde enroll in college in Portugal. These students face multiple academic and social integration challenges upon arrival, dropping out of college at much higher rates than other groups of students. Imperfect information at origin may lead many of these students to misperceive their expected costs and benefits from a college degree in Portugal.
Does providing tailored information on the average costs and benefits from a college degree in Portugal change high school students migration decisions? To test this hypothesis, the project is implementing an experimental impact evaluation of information sessions in Cape Verdean high schools. The study helps understanding how being exposed to better, more targeted information on living costs, graduation prospects, as well as future returns to education shifts students’ decisions to migrate, and whether this ultimately improves their educational outcomes.
Outcomes of the Project
1. Publication: “What matters for the decision to study abroad? A lab-in-the-field experiment in Cape Verde”
By Catia Batista, David M. Costa, Pedro Freitas, Gonçalo Lima, Ana B. Reis
Published in the Journal of Development Economics, Volume 173, 2025, 103401.
You can read the Working Paper version of this article here, and the corresponding published Article (open access) here.
2. Policy Brief arising from surveys conducted with students already attending Portuguese higher education (pt version only) here.
3. Dissemination Workshops co-organized with the Ministry of Education of Cape Verde
Catia Batista, Pedro Freitas, Gonçalo Lima and Ana B. Reis discussed the project key findings in Dissemination Workshops organized together with the Cape Verde Ministry of Education that took place in Praia on September 29, 2025, and Mindelo on October 2, 2025.
See the workshop program for Day 1 and Day 2.
4. Media coverage of the research project
Watch interview in the Cape Verdean national TV RTC here.
Expresso das Ilhas article here.
Read RTE Radio e Tecnologias Educativas post here.
Contributing to SDGs:
