Higher Education in Brazil in the last years: reduction in inequalities of access?

Abstract

In the last decades, we can identify a significant expansion of higher education in Brazil, accompanied by important changes in the socioeconomic composition of the students. The main objective of this study is to verify if these movements also led to a reduction of inequalities in the chances of access to this educational level. Based on data from the National Household Sample Survey (IBGE), for the years 1995, 2005 and 2015, we will try not only to describe the trends observed in the last two decades, but also to test empirically, through multivariate models, the hypothesis of the reduction of inequalities of access. More specifically, we will be interested in evaluating the possible reduction of the effects of class of origin on the chances of access to higher education and, also, on the kind of institution, if public or private, over the last two decades.

Keywords:
Higher education; Access; Inequalities; Expansion; Brazil