This paper has the purpose of exploring the categories which refer to institutions, courses and student body, aiming at making a study of issues related to privatization and to this system differentiation, in the context of its expansion. It is based on the Brazilian Higher Education Census from 1996 to 2006. The Education National Plan (2001) was considered as a boundary mark, as it has been used as a parameter when evaluating the evolution tendencies of the system. It was possible to verify that public choices to expand such educational level have tended to emphasize the system differentiation, with an emphasis on public sphere, by means of either new types of courses/institutions - Higher Education courses on Technology at the Federal Institutions of Education, Science and Technology - or the institutionalization of Distance Education - Brazilian Open University. The privatization process goes on, not so fast, through other ways like the concession of scholarships to the ProUni.
Higher Education; Higher Education expansion; Differentiation; Privatization
