Choices, trajectories and inequalities in access to higher education: An analysis based on the panel of youth evaluated by PISA 2009 in Uruguay

Abstract

The Uruguayan university presents an “access paradox”: Open institutional design and restricted enrollment. This constitutes a problem for educational policy and sociological analysis related to the profiles of entrants and the underlying social selection processes. There are two central questions: Who accesses the University of the Republic (UDELAR)? and How much weight is given to previous experiences and social origins? The novelty that we propose to contribute is through the analysis of exceptional data, combining the Survey applied in 2014 to a representative national sample of young people evaluated by PISA in 2009, and administrative microdata generated by the UDELAR. The observation window is 10 years, with socioeconomic information on the home of origin, trajectory in secondary education, work events, family events, income and choice of one or more than one career upon entry. This allows us to order the logical paper, establishing temporal precedence and strengthening the empirical base, allowing causal inferences to be formulated. In particular, our main objective will be to test three hypotheses that allow us to articulate the role of “condensation of inequalities” that the type of transition to adulthood would have on access to HE.