The Educational Degree was born as a family business and continues to be. But growth required professionalization. In December 2010, the start was tentative. The first unit of the Educational Degree opened its doors in Recife, in Pernambuco, with high expectations.
“We opened on December 14th and we were very anxious to know what the market’s response would be. In the first two weeks we had less than 15 enrollments. In January we achieved 197 enrollments. In the first year, our goal was 100 enrollments and we had 2300 enrollments. Almost double what was planned”, recalls Ruy Maurício Porto Carreiro Filho, CEO and founding partner of the technical school.
Fifteen years later, the Educational Degree has 133 units and plans to double in size. The plan envisages reaching 300 schools in the country, prioritizing organic expansion and new franchise formats. The network already has 180,000 active students and revenues exceeding R$500 million in 2025.
“When we implemented the first unit, we visited all the nearby technical education schools. We didn’t want to be the same as what the market was already offering”, says Carolina da Fonte, founding partner and also director of operations for the network.
The brothers participated in the program From Zero to Topa program that tells stories of successful entrepreneurs.
Brazil as a bet
Before creating their own brand, the founders, Ruy Maurício Porto Carreiro Filho and his sister Carolina da Fonte, worked as franchisees in the professional training sector. With the creation and growth of Grau Educacional, the other brothers in the duo also joined in to help with the business.
Today, according to Ruy, around 40% of the network’s students are in the Southeast, 40% in the Northeast and the rest distributed between the North, South and Central-West. The strategy now targets internalization and new partnership formats with secondary schools and higher education centers.
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“We think that Brazil still has many opportunities. The Brazilian market is extremely promising and is extremely lacking in technical qualifications”, says the CEO.
According to the founders, only around 11% to 12% of young Brazilians are in technical education, a percentage below European countries and the United States. For the CEO, there is room for sustained growth in the medium and long term, even in the face of adverse economic cycles.
“To give you an idea, last year 2025, we had more than 1 million registrations, that is, people who came to us interested in enrolling. But we can only convert between 10 and 15% of this demand. And the biggest reason for not enrolling is income”, reveals Ruy.
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Marketing no radar
A strategic decision right at the beginning of the network was decisive for the brand to achieve growth. After investing around R$1 million in the structure of the first unit, the founders chose to expand the brand’s exposure.
“We needed to spend another 30% of the amount I had spent on the entire business to invest just in advertising. And I believe that was what made the business prosper, being able to attract more students because where there are sales there is no problem”, concludes Ruy.
To find out more details on how the Grau Educacional school network managed to scale and stand out among the largest in technical education in the country, see the full episode on . The program is available in its podcast version on the main streaming platforms such as , , , and
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About From Zero to Top
The Do Zero ao Topo podcast is a production of InfoMoney and brings, every week, the stories of prominent women and men in the Brazilian market to tell their story, sharing the biggest challenges faced along the way and the main strategies used in building the business.
