Access to Public Universities in Latin American Countries: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In recent decades, Latin America has undergone a sustained process of expansion and massification of higher education, accompanied by the recognition of higher education as a human right and a public good. However, this scenario coexists with persistent social and educational inequalities that condition the effective opportunities for access, retention, and graduation among broad sectors of the population. In this context, the aim of this study is to comparatively analyze public university access policies across some countries in the region, identifying their main characteristics, tensions, and regional trends. The research adopts an exploratory-descriptive comparative approach and is based on the analysis of regulations, public information, and official documents from the selected countries. The findings reveal different models of university access regulation, ranging from open-admission schemes to centralized or institution-based selective systems. The study also identifies several convergent regional trends, including the recent expansion of access opportunities; the persistence of structural inequalities that particularly affect historically marginalized groups; the increasing institutional diversification of higher education systems; and the risk of consolidating segmented educational pathways characterized by differentiated levels of quality. The results show that, although the region has made significant progress in expanding access and formally recognizing the right to higher education, explicit and implicit mechanisms of exclusion continue to persist, limiting the development of fully inclusive university systems.