The paradox of inequalities in the transition to higher education in Chile: a trend analysis of counterfactuals and components of primary effects of social background

This study analyzes to what extent changes in access to higher education in a diversified educational system are influenced by trends in social and achievement inequalities, and how changes in its components influence these inequality trends, in a context of expansion of educational opportunities. We use a unique longitudinal census dataset from entire student cohorts between 2008 and 2018, covering a national standardized assessment in 10th grade and administrative registers of higher education enrolment in Chile, a country with a well-known private provision of education at all levels. By means of decomposition analyses and multinomial logistic models, we focus on access to university tracks, confirming early findings on the major importance of achievement inequalities in explaining socioeconomic differences in enrolments at selective tracks. Social origin, in turn, drives enrollments in non-selective tracks. However, we found that although achievement inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged students decline over time, the importance of primary effects shows a general increasing tendency. This paradox is explained by the differential rates of change in the relative influence of social origin and the components of achievement inequality. Social differentials influence on enrollments, on top of achievement differences, have declined steeper than achievement inequalities. We discuss how these trends may reflect processes of adaptation and exclusion in achievement inequalities which could drive a regime of effective maintained inequality to one of expanding inequality, even after the free tuition reform of 2016