Recent literature (Cairns, Growiec, & Alves, 2014; Dietrich, 2013) suggests that economic crisis in Youth Studies is a topic that need further development. The economic and financial crisis affected young people from the majority of EU Member States in their expectations regarding education, employment and life pathways and choices in general. The sense of precarity, lack of prospects and vulnerability increased and was accompanied by a relative growth of what seemed to be the group of inactive young people. Nevertheless, in the past two decades non linearity and risk has been associated to youth transitions, accounting for changes in young people life trajectories, at the same time that we become acquainted by changes and challenges, namely faced by school and family in their roles in structuring those pathways (Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; Leccardi, 2005; Pais, 2000; Silva, 2011; Walther, 2006). A very recent study by Pau Serracant (2015) for the Catalonia context tries to analyse the impact of crisis in youth transitions regime, calling the attention for the main reasons for the extension of youth transitions, especially education and work transition.

This poster seeks to compare data collected through a questionnaire in 2011 and in 2015 in what concerns young people from border regions educational aspirations. The year’s range is coincident with the fall of the Portuguese government and the troika rescue programme and bailout, followed by 4 years of austerity measures. It was our aim to find out how their expectations were constructed in two distinguished moments, concerning future plans and prospects, indicating willingness to continuing studying, or indicating to invest in an anticipated school to work transition solution.

In the past 4 decades Higher Education system in Portugal become acquainted with a process of expansion and democratization (Magalhães, 2004; Teodoro, 2003) and new type of students, as those coming working class, started to become admitted in HE - as well as a larger number of women (Rocha & Silva, 2007).

Families from working class started investing, under hard conditions, in their children education, feeling that access to Higher Education was not restricted to privileged young people and understanding benefits from a wider participation in HE. The difficult times that came with the economic crisis put in danger former investments and the fulfillment of those families expectations, inducing a reorganization of young people aspirations and plans.

The main goal in this poster is to discuss young people choice dynamics framed by a structure of opportunities and that can be understood as being more or less affected by the economic crisis, understanding that “the economic crisis is expected to reduce de adoption of risks” (Serracant, 2015, p.49), especially when other disadvantages are already existent (SES and geographic location). It is understood that leaving a mainstreaming educational pathway decrease young people’s opportunities. This fact can only be understood if you consider it "in relation to individual biographies and the extent to which different young people have access to the requisite resources to enable them to respond constructively to events and changing circumstances" (Thomson et al., 2002, p.350).

In this proposal geographic aspects are taken into consideration, as young people decision-making processes, concerning going to Higher Education, imply, in several cases, moving to another place. Hence, this proposal is also benefiting from borders studies (Aitken et al., 2011; Christou & Syprou, 2012), also those referring to young people in the Portuguese context (Dornelas et al., 2010; Portela et al., 2000).

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