In Brazil, there have been some initiatives to introduce a system of affirmative action quotas in public universities, to benefit either black students or individuals who have studied in public schools. In this paper, I develop a simple model to analyze theoretically the effects of the introduction of such a system on the efficiency of expenditures in higher education. The effects on the overall efficiency of the total investments (public and private) can be beneficial, nonexistent, or detrimental, depending on the degree of the liquidity constraint of the low-income families and the quality of the public university vis-à-vis private ones.
affirmative action; quotas; efficiency; public and private universities
