Between persistence and change in Latin America: Did the recent expansion of higher education reduce educational inequality by social origins?

The aim of this thesis is to explore the effect that the recent expansion of higher education has had on the role of inequality by social origins in attendance to this level in Latin America. To do so, the following 12 countries were included in the analyses: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Particular attention is paid on Chile, an adjudicative case within the region as this piece gradually reveals. The thesis is comprised of two main parts, with one of them dedicated to exploring the recent expansion and the effects of social origins on higher education at the regional level, and the other is dedicated to addressing the Chilean case in depth. In total, the piece is comprised of four empirical and two theoretical chapters, organised as follows. The first part of this thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter entitled “The recent expansion of higher education in Latin America” describes the general scenario and characteristics of the recent expansion of higher education in the region, which occurred in the last two decades in most of the country under study. In addition, the chapter presents the methodology used for all the empirics at the regional level, including data, sample, variables, and modelling strategy. The second chapter “The more… the merrier in higher education?” examines whether the recent expansion has reduced the effect of social origins on attendance in higher education in Latin America. To do so, the chapter discusses the general perception, according to which the recent expansion has been a positive change – because “the more, the merrier” in higher education – as if expansion was sufficient to democratise access to this level by itself and by default. The third chapter “Does privatisation matter?” starts to unveil the role that institutional settings play in inequality in higher education. To do so, the chapter dedicates a section to developing a classification of models of expansion for Latin America, based upon the degree of privatisation and market-orientation in tertiary education. The fourth chapter “To what extent do countries differ?” continues to unveil the role of institutional settings, examining if there are any differences by country within a certain model of expansion. For the three models, cases that deviate from the group trends are identified, and for each of them the social dynamics behind their results are discussed. The second part of this thesis is dedicated to the case of Chile and is composed of two chapters. The fifth chapter is entitled “Expansion and student support policies in a context of high privatisation: The case of Chile” and details the expansion policies implemented in higher education in Chile after 2002, with particular emphasis on the student loan regimes. Chile is considered an adjudicative case in Latin America because the country has been able to combine trends related to different models of expansion, despite having one of the highest degrees of privatisation and market-orientation in education. The sixth chapter “Changing educational inequality in contemporary Chile?” draws on the particularities of the Chilean case, exploring to what extent the student loan policies implemented in the last decade have been effective in reducing inequality by social origins in higher education attendance between different social sectors. In addition, not only higher education attendance is addressed, but also access to different tiers and institutions. Through working with a different dataset, CASEN allows for the expansion of the comprehensive definition of social origins, increasing the number of indicators related to parental sociocultural and economic resources, providing more up-to-date estimates about their effect on contemporary educational stratification. The final part presents the conclusions, including policy implications and recommendations for further research, both at the regional level and for the case of Chile. The thesis, then, closes by reinforcing the role of institutional settings in tackling inequality by social origins in tertiary education and the limitations of the current policies at this level.