The Massification of Higher Education and the Promise of Social Mobility : Tensions and Contradictions in the Contemporary Chilean Society

Abstract

The massification of higher education is one of the most relevant educational phenomena of the last decades, especially in Latin America, where democratization waves have been quick and intense. Within this region, Chile can be considered an exemplar case of massification, experiencing an explosive growth of tertiary institutions, driven by the unregulated creation of universities and the expansion of private universities. Private higher education institutions offer diversified educational pathways and bear the mission of educating the lower and the lower-middle classes of Chile, becoming places expected to fulfill the promise of social mobility. This chapter seeks to reflect upon mass universities, discussing the relationship between enrollment in these institutions and the social mobility processes involved through a statistical analysis of national data. Thus, this chapter will distinguish the main profiles of mass universities – via clustering techniques – considering variables related to the students background (social and economic status, and academic achievement), students’ outcomes (employment rates and average salary), and university-level variables such as enrollment, level of selectivity, among others.