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The impact of non-cognitive factors on admission to selective universities: the case of Chile
Educational Review
Abstract
Some universities, often the most prestigious in a higher education system, select qualified applicants solely on the basis of their measured academic or cognitive abilities. The universities' assumption is that these cognitive abilities are an accurate and complete measure of the applicants' capacity to benefit from university study. This study assesses the extent to which the cognitive measures used are partially the result of other, non-cognitive factors unrelated to future academic performance. Sole reliance on cognitive measures skews university admission in favour of those of higher socioeconomic status. Data for the study were collected by the University of Chile's Department of Evaluation, Measurement and Educational Registration (DEMRE) from 190,000 applicants seeking admission to Chile's 39 selective universities in 2019. The analysis identifies the direct and indirect effects of variables measuring applicants' cognitive and non-cognitive attributes. Logistic regression models were constructed to estimate the differential effect of the two types of factors on admission. The results indicate that non-cognitive factors have an indirect effect on admission through their effect on cognitive scores. Access to selective universities in Chile is partially influenced by students' prior social, cultural, and economic conditions. As a consequence, university education is distributed partially on the basis of social origin and not just ability. The admission process should be changed to reduce discrimination against applicants based on their social origin.
... Chile has in Latin America become a paradigmatic case of expansion of access to higher education driven by the private sector (Chiroleu & Marquina, 2017). Despite these advances, however, the inclusion of historically marginalized groups continues to be a problem (Espinoza et al., 2022). Admission tests are a major factor. ...
... However, various studies have demonstrated that students exhibit different outcomes contingent upon their socioeconomic background, particularly in relation to the characteristics of their secondary education. Regardless of their performance at the secondary level, students from public secondary schools and from the vocational track obtain lower scores in the selection tests, which excludes them from the most selective and prestigious institutions (Espinoza et al., 2022;Catalán, 2016). ...
Affirmative action policies have been implemented in various regions of the globe as a strategy to promote equity in access to higher education. In Chile, some affirmative action policies have been implemented to reduce inequality in access to the most selective universities during last decade. However, in addition to access, it is important to consider the persistence of students to ensure their success within the system. The persistence of students admitted to 11 Chilean universities through affirmative action was analyzed using a multilevel discrete-time survival model and matching procedures. The results indicate that those admitted through special quota were more likely to drop out at the end of the first two years. However, the initial dropout rate was attributed to lower grades, while the dropout rate in the second year was observed even in cases where performance was the same. Institutions should implement programs oriented toward promoting students’ academic and social integration in the university taking structural inequalities into account, as well as the effort and resilience of students.
... With the transition from an elite to a mass system, the socio-economic profile of students entering the system also changed. In this sense, the majority of enrolment today is made up of students who are the first in their families to enter university (Espinoza et al. 2018(Espinoza et al. , 2024Fukushi 2010). These students not only face greater economic hardship than their continuing peers, but also greater academic challenges associated with unfamiliarity with the university system. ...
Academic performance (GPA) is a fundamental factor in student success in college. Therefore, knowing the factors that influence it is important for universities. The objective of this research is to identify the determinants of university student academic performance during the first 3 years of its trajectory. The conclusions are based on data describing characteristics and behaviour of students who successfully completed three consecutive years of study in 10 public and private universities in Chile. The student participants were drawn from a selected list of all non‐repeating students who entered the university in 2016 or in 2017. Data were collected from admission files and using a self‐administered 39‐item questionnaire. The questionnaire was applied during the first semester of 2021. Data were analysed using multilevel linear regression to control for similarities between students in the same programme. The findings show that both pre and post‐enrolment variables affect performance. However, the influence of each factor varies according to the year of study. While, over the years, the importance of gender and secondary school grades increases and remains the same, respectively, selection tests are particularly important in the first year. In turn, variables associated with university experience, such as the relationship with professors or the occurrence of disruptive situations, affect performance from the first to the third year.
... The pronounced expansion of enrollment of the Chilean higher education system in the last three decades has contributed to a gradual shrinking of the access gap among students of different socioeconomic levels (Ministerio de Desarrollo Social 2018), but high-prestige degree programs and universities continue to serve primarily elite students (Espinoza et al. 2022a(Espinoza et al. , 2022bHurst 2018;Jerrim, Chmielewski, and Parker 2015). Given the key importance of university credentials, this situation contributes to the reproduction of existing inequalities (Bills 2016;Wakeling and Savage 2015). ...
Enrollments in higher education have expanded greatly, but without elimination of all forms of inequality. Research in industrialized countries has shown that the path students follow in their transition from secondary school continues to be associated with their social class. This study provides quantitative evidence of that relationship in a non-industrial country like Chile. Multinomial logistic and linear regression of university admission data managed by the Department of Evaluation, Measurement and Registration describing 130,000 applicants for the years 2015 and 2017 were used to estimate the probability of a member of a particular social class choosing a given university and academic field of study. The results show differences regarding law programs and science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs. Class differences were particularly important in the choice of university. Working-class students were more likely to apply to public universities, avoiding elite and especially private institutions. The findings provide further support for Bourdieu's habitus explanation of class reproduction. They suggest more attention to the level of segregation in Chilean higher education and the factors that produce it.
This study presents an innovative approach to support educational administration, focusing on the optimization of university admission processes using feature selection algorithms. The research addresses the challenges of concept drift, outlier treatment, and the weighting of key factors in admission criteria. The proposed methodology identifies the optimal set of features and assigns weights to the selection criteria that demonstrate the strongest correlation with academic performance, thereby contributing to improved educational management by optimizing decision-making processes. The approach incorporates concept change management and outlier detection in the preprocessing stage while employing multivariate feature selection techniques in the processing stage. Applied to the admission process of engineering students at a public Chilean university, the methodology considers socioeconomic, academic, and demographic variables, with curricular advancement as the objective. The process generated a subset of attributes and an application score with predictive capabilities of 83% and 84%, respectively. The results show a significantly greater association between the application score and academic performance when the methodology’s weights are used, compared to the actual weights. This highlights the increased predictive power by accounting for concept drift, outliers, and shared information between variables.
Fifty years ago, the expansion of access to higher education was expected to result in greater socio-economic equality. Instead, segmentation in mass higher education systems has called into question the effective democratization of access to higher education. This phenomenon appeared first in higher income countries, allowing the identification of some factors that contribute to segmentation. This article seeks to provide evidence from the Chilean case, evaluating how students' social backgrounds affect admission to different types of universities. Data for the study were taken from the applications of 57,780 students admitted in 2019. Multinomial logistic regression was employed. The results showed that, depending on their background, students of the same level of academic performance follow different paths. Students from families with a high level of income or graduated from private secondary school were more likely to be admitted to private universities. Some
of the dynamics present in European countries and the United States are also observed in Chile, particularly those related to the segregation of the school system and private provision and funding at the tertiary level.
Zusammenfassung
Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, basierend auf der Längsschnittstudie BIJU, die in den Bundesländern Nordrhein-Westfalen, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Sachsen-Anhalt durchgeführt wurde, soziale Herkunftseffekte bei der Wahl der Hochschulform zu Studienbeginn. Dabei liegt der Fokus auf den dahinter liegenden Mechanismen sozial ungleicher Übertritte an Universitäten, Fachhochschulen und Berufsakademien. Diese werden über primäre Effekte (herkunftsspezifische Unterschiede in Schulabschlussnoten und standardisierten Testleistungen), sekundäre Effekte in Form von Motiven der Ausbildungswahl und Aspekte des Ausbildungsweges modelliert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Studierende aus akademischem Elternhaus überdurchschnittlich häufig eine Universität und unterdurchschnittlich häufig eine Fachhochschule besuchen. Bei multivariater Betrachtung können Unterschiede in der Art der Studienberechtigung, einer Berufsausbildung, der Englischleistung sowie den Ausbildungswahlmotiven Herkunftseffekte zum Teil vermitteln. Die Befunde bleiben auch bei ausschließlicher Betrachtung einer Studiengruppe, die an allen Hochschulformen umfangreich vertreten ist, den Wirtschaftswissenschaften, stabil.
This paper examines the determinants of retention and GPA for a large population of students enrolled at a U.S. public four-year university. Using a Heckman selection model to correct for sample selection bias, we find that cognitive factors positively relate to GPA over the college career and that non-cognitive factors have a stronger association in earlier semesters. These results suggest that policy to increase retention should focus on building community, whereas policy to improve academic achievement should focus on developing the perseverance required to build study skills in the early college years.
A considerable proportion of students in Germany has graduated from vocational training before entering higher education. With this paper we examined how these students progress through higher education. We argue that successful graduation is the result of a sequence of decisions and decompose the trajectories through higher education to distinguish non-completion, transfer and dropout. We used the German Educational Panel Study (NEPS-SC6), a retrospective life course study, and applied logistic regression models. Our results suggest that students with vocational qualifications are slightly more likely to graduate from the initially chosen program than traditional students, but this advantage diminishes after controlling individual and institutional characteristics. After non-completion of the initially chosen program, the traditional students are more likely to remain in higher education and transfer to another program, whereas students with vocational certificates rather choose to leave higher education. Taking the entire trajectory together, our bivariate analyses reveal a slightly higher risk of leaving higher education without graduation among the students with pre-tertiary vocational training. Again, this association disappears in models that control for individual and institutional characteristics.
El presente artículo tiene el propósito de evaluar el impacto que ha tenido el modelo neoliberal impulsado a contar del año 1981 bajo la dictadura de Pinochet en lo que respecta al acceso al sistema terciario y la calidad de la oferta. Para ello se apela al uso de estadísticas gubernamentales y de agencias de acreditación. Los datos permiten concluir que la privatización de la oferta ha contribuido a mejorar de manera significativa la cobertura en el acceso a la educación superior. Sin embargo, el incremento de la oferta de carreras no ha estado asociado a una mejora en la calidad de los programas tal como lo revelan los procesos de acreditación impulsados en los últimos años por la Comisión Nacional de Acreditación y las agencias privadas de acreditación.
El artículo discute los efectos que ha generado el proceso de privatización
del sistema terciario chileno impulsado por la dictadura de Pinochet a contar del año
1981. A partir de fuentes primarias y secundarias se evalúa lo acontecido en materia
de crecimiento de la plataforma institucional pública y privada, de la matrícula de
pregrado, de la oferta de carreras y de la oferta de profesionales. Junto con ello se analiza
lo acontecido con el régimen de financiamiento. La evidencia permite concluir que la
privatización ha tenido un efecto nocivo para la sociedad y los actores involucrados, dado
que el crecimiento explosivo que experimentó el sistema terciario, y que se manifiesta en
una creciente apertura de carreras, matrícula y tasa de titulados, ha generado una oferta
privada totalmente desregulada que no se condice con las necesidades del país.
El objetivo del presente estudio fue valorar la incidencia en el acceso a la educación superior chilena de tres tipos de factores en estudiantes provenientes de colegios técnico profesionales: factores individuales (respuestas correctas en la PSU de Lenguaje y Comunicación y PSU de Matemática, Puntaje NEM y Puntaje Ranking, cuando corresponde); factores sociodemográficos (género, región, ingreso bruto familiar, nivel educacional y situación ocupacional de ambos padres); y factores institucionales (dependencia administrativa y rama del establecimiento educacional de egreso). Con este fin, se analizó la información recolectada por el Departamento de Evaluación, Medición y Registro Educacional (DEMRE) y el Servicio de Información en Educación Superior (SIES) para los procesos de admisión transcurridos entre los años 2009 a 2015. Mediante la formulación de modelos de regresión logística binaria fue posible establecer que las variables a) Nivel educacional de la madre; b) Situación ocupacional del padre (o su nivel educacional); c) Ingreso bruto familiar; d) Rama del establecimiento técnico profesional de egreso; e) Número de respuestas correctas en PSU Lenguaje; y f) Número de respuestas correctas en PSU Matemática, corresponden a factores que permiten distinguir la trayectoria de los estudiantes entre aquellos que se matriculan en alguna universidad versus aquellos que lo hacen en centros de formación técnica e institutos profesionales.
Este estudio examina el impacto de las estrategias institucionales de promoción de estudios universitarios por parte de los establecimientos de Educación Secundaria sobre los resultados
en la prueba de selección universitaria y el acceso de los alumnos a las universidades selectivas, en un contexto de masificación desigual de los estudios universitarios y donde las condiciones socioeconómicas y culturales de origen pesan fuertemente sobre el acceso a estas instituciones. Para este estudio se utilizó una encuesta aplicada a una muestra representativa de 817 alumnos de último año de enseñanza secundaria pertenecientes a establecimientos de modalidad científico-humanista de la provincia de Concepción, en Chile. Los resultados del estudio comprueban la influencia del capital cultural individual y de la composición social del colegio sobre los resultados de los alumnos en la prueba de selección universitaria y el acceso a las universidades selectivas, pero muestran también que las estrategias institucionales de los establecimientos secundarios pueden moderar esta influencia y que son especialmente provechosas para los alumnos que más las requieren.
Challenges for students who are ‘first-in-family’ to attend university have been discussed within widening participation discourse. However, in the UK, ‘first-in-family’ or first-generation students have frequently been conflated with those experiencing poverty or from lower socio-economic groups. This research integrated survey data with assessment data from final-year design and engineering students in a UK university to examine students’ attainment, the influences on why students decide to attend university and students’ experiences during their degree programmes. Analysis of the data showed variations in the reasons for first- and second-generation students wanting to go to university, particularly a significant difference in the influence of parents. First-generation students described significantly less parental influence on the decision to attend university than second- or subsequent-generation students. Smaller differences in students’ experiences and attainment in university were also noted. Whilst first-generation students reported differences in study habits, their attainment was, on average, marginally higher than that of their peers. Building on others’ theoretical work, which suggests the importance of social capital within higher education (HE), this research highlights the difference in social influences on both university application and expectations of university for those with and without a family history of tertiary education. Further research is needed to explore, in larger samples, whether the social influences on individuals’ perception of HE are in turn shaped by whether or not their parents attended university, and further, what impact this may have, not only on degree outcomes but also on the broader benefits typically associated with graduate experience.
Este documento caracteriza de forma empírica la estratificación y movilidad social en Chile a través de las probabilidades de acceso a instituciones de educación superior (IES) de 1990 a 2009 con base en el estatus socioeconómico y cultural de los hogares. Los resultados sugieren que los individuos con más capital cultural y económico incrementaron en mayor medida sus probabilidades de acceso. Esto sugiere una menor movilidad social relativa. En específico, el acceso a ies está más relacionado con el ingreso de los hogares en 2009 que en 1990, al tiempo que la educación de los padres está hoy más relacionada con el acceso a universidades “tradicionales”. En conjunto, los resultados sugieren que las clases sociales más bajas enfrentan restricciones financieras y culturales en su intento por acceder a las instituciones más prestigiadas. De esta manera, la desigualdad en el acceso a la educación superior por clase social, a pesar de la expansión educativa, parece reproducirse de manera “efectiva”.
Numerous studies have shown that socioeconomic inequalities, manifested through differences in student’s prior academic preparation or achievement, strongly influence access to Chilean universities. To date, the research has focused mainly on the influence of academic factors on inequalities in access, paying little attention to the role of non-academic factors in this process. Administrative records of the university admission process in 2013 (n = 264,023) were used to study how academic and non-academic factors influence the decision to apply to universities. The findings confirm that the decision to apply to the college admission process is strongly associated with the scores on the university admission tests (PSU), as well as parental education and the applicants’ educational expectations. In particular, the findings suggest that students’ socioeconomic backgrounds influence their decision to apply to universities, arising from their evaluation of their own abilities and expectations of success in the university system.
Even though vocational education at the secondary level is focused on preparing students for the work world, in Chile, it has turned into a way to enter higher education. In this context, this research aims to increase the knowledge about educational trajectories of students in vocational education at the secondary level, by addressing two main areas: factors related to a preference for vocational secondary school and the future choice of these students to apply to a university . This investigation, thus, studied the association between a set of variables related to habitus and the preference for studying vocational education at the secondary level. Additionally, it investigated if having studied this modality in secondary education affects the probability that these students will apply to the universities of the Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCH, Board of Regents of Chilean Universities), after controlling for academic and socioeconomic variables. This investigation’s results support the relevance of social predispositions on educational trajectories and highlight the role that the modality of secondary level education would have on the reproduction of the students’ social differences.
Theory suggests that teacher encouragement can aid students’ educational progress, but there are not yet quantitative inferential studies that assess its longer-term impact. With data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), I use propensity-score matching to investigate whether encouragement influences the likelihood of students enrolling in (1) advanced high school (A-level) courses and (2) a university degree course. Model estimates suggest that encouragement does have a significant positive impact on both outcomes. In addition, I investigate whether encouragement effects vary according to parental education and the given student’s prior academic achievement; it appears that the impact is greatest for those students in the middle third of academic achievement as well as those with lower levels of parental education. These findings have important policy implications, especially as it seems that teacher encouragement has the greatest influence on those students most likely to be on the margin for university attendance.
The following text gives insight into the expectations of young Chilean working class in the context of Anillo Social Sciences Research Project N°SOC1108, «Youths: socioeconomic, sociopolitical and sociocultural transformations of young women and men in contemporary Chile».
This article analyses the material and ideological implications of a highly commodified mass higher education system on the 2011 students' mobilisations in Chile. Drawing upon quantitative and qualitative data, we show that the grievances denounced by the movement emerged from the differences in the process of socialisation/reproduction of intellectual labour among universities, which in turn correspond to forms of class exploitation. Moreover, we demonstrate that students' engagement in/with the movement varies across universities in accordance with the differentiation of these institutions along class and political cleavages. The article offers insights to understand why a sectoral conflict became the most significant challenge to the neoliberal consensus that has prevailed since the late-1980s.
This paper considers the relationship between family background, academic achievement in high school and access to high-status postsecondary institutions in three developed countries (Australia, England and the United States). We begin by estimating the unconditional association between family background and access to a high status university, before examining how this relationship changes once academic achievement in high school is controlled. Our results suggest that high achieving disadvantaged children are much less likely to enter a high-status college than their more advantaged peers, and that the magnitude of this socio-economic gradient is broadly similar across these three countries. However, we also find that socio-economic inequality in access to high-status private US colleges is much more pronounced than access to their public sector counterparts (both within the US and when compared overseas).
El siguiente artículo tiene como propósito reflexionar acerca del significativo cambio que ha experimentado el sistema de educación superior chileno en las últimas décadas.
Esta reflexión no se enfoca en revisar los cambios en la institucionalidad y sus efectos; sino en relevar al sujeto que ha surgido de dicho proceso. Se trata de un individuo que tiene cabida y sentido en este momento histórico, que asume el desafío que le propone la sociedad; pero al mismo tiempo exige su recompensa: el Chile de las oportunidades no es evidente. Se constata una tensión, por un lado el individuo que acepta la oferta de una formación que le asegure un proyecto de vida, y por otra una elite que no ha �abierto� las puertas para que estos nuevos actores jueguen el rol que esperan. Así, la meritocracia queda en el ámbito de lo pendiente.
The aim of this research is to quantify the predictive ability of high school grades (NEM) in relation to score obtained by chilean students in the national university selection test (PSU). It implies a revision of the average scores achieved by students coming from every High School in the country, by specific area, rendered in the 2012 national university selection test accordingly to types of teaching and school. It also includes a correlation matrix (both bivariate and partial) to determine a relation between each test output and school performance (NEM). Main findings are: The educational system in Chile segregates and sets different levels of achievement according to types of school and studentś social capital. It also provides evidence of the existence of poor internal evaluation systems, with little validity and reliability levels, that reflect diverging policies for school grading and academic demand. In municipal high schools or schools that attend to students at high social and economic risk, their internal evaluation systems show a reduced predictive capacity for PSU scores.
This study investigated the effects of economic status and the educational expectations of significant others on early university aspirations and actual university attainment. The study analyzed two-wave longitudinal data collected from 1,595 Taiwanese students in their 9th grade in middle school and in their freshman year at universities. The results revealed that economic status affected neither university aspirations nor university attainment. Among the significant others studied, parental expectations fundamentally affected university aspirations and teacher expectations consistently affected university aspirations and attainment. After considering economic status and educational expectations, early university aspirations remained strongly related to actual university attainment. Future research directions and practical educational approaches are recommended based on the aforementioned results.
Este trabajo analiza la segregación de la población escolar en Chile en dos dimensiones: la segregación socioeconómica y la segregación académica, materia de enorme interés dado la fuerte configuración de mercado del sistema educacional chileno. El texto sitúa el análisis de la segregación en el marco de la creciente preocupación por la equidad educacional y propone una conceptualización que vincula la segregación escolar con la investigación acerca del "efecto de los compañeros" en educación (peer effects). A continuación, se revisa y discute la evidencia empírica disponible acerca de la magnitud, causas y efectos de la segregación socioeconómica y la segregación académica de la educación chilena. El trabajo concluye identificando algunos de los desafíos que este campo de estudio presenta a la investigación científica y proponiendo líneas de investigación futura que permitan avanzar en el conocimiento de un tema relevante pero comparativamente poco estudiado.
This paper analyzes school segregation in Chile in two dimensions: socioeconomic segregation and academic segregation; a matter of great interest given the radical market oriented organization of the Chilean education. The analysis is situated in the context of the growing concern about the educational equity and proposes a conceptualization that links school segregation to the study of the peer-effect in education (i.e. the effect caused by school peers). Additionally, the paper reviews and discusses the available empirical evidence about the magnitude, causes and effects of the socioeconomic and academic segregation in Chile. Finally, the paper identifies some of the challenges that school segregation poses to the scientific research and proposes some research branches for additional studies, in order to advance in the academic knowledge of this relevant but poorly studied issue.
This article analyzes the aspirations and expectations for the future of senior high school students through a representative sample of educational centers in the city of Santiago. The study shows that, independently of socioeconomic level and the modality of the courses taken, the great majority of students hopes to get into an institution of higher education and obtain a professional degree. However, there are important differences in the perception as to how to achieve these goals, where a large number of young people from low and low-middle income classes are more open to combining work and studies and end up postponing their higher educational studies. Diverse rationalities expressed by students are reviewed, which would explain their expectations for the future and their choice of career and technical studies according to their social status.
This study aims to explore differences in academic performance in universities of students coming
from different socioeconomic groups using the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile as a study case.
Socioeconomic groups were defined based on the type of school the student graduated from and the
household income quintile. One-way ANOVA and Chi Square tests were used to examine whether
differences in college grades and persistence were statistically significant. The results indicate that
the average scores and persistence rates do not differ substantially when comparing the academic
performance of students from different socioeconomic levels. We expect these results contribute to the
discussion about inclusion of economically disadvantaged people in universities.
The following paper presents the results of a research aimed to firstly assess how the cultural capital
of students obtained in their last year of high school influences their aspirations to attend a selective
university and their degree of achievement. An original questionnaire was applied to 1054 students
in 23 different educational establishments of Concepcion Metropolitan Area. The analysis shows a
persistent influence of cultural capital on aspirations and their subsequent realization even after
incorporating variables related to the student academic achievement. Furthermore, this study confirms
a strong influence of the school socioeconomic composition even after taking into account the student
academic level and their family cultural capital. Finally, it shows that strategies adopted by students
to facilitate their entering into university, as attending courses to prepare entrance exams, strongly
affect aspirations and completion of university studies. Inequality in access is considerably influenced
by objective structural factors but also by the rational choice strategies undertaken by students.
Learning to speak and understand language is a remarkable and important accomplishment of early childhood. Parent–infant interaction in the first three years is critical to this. This is the focus of this review – the first of the whole area. Seven databases were searched and 1750 studies reduced to 60 with good evidence. These 60 were from many disciplines and their methodological quality was variable. There was strong evidence that parental contingency (communication when the intended recipient is fully oriented towards receiving and processing it) and parental efforts in pre-literacy activities are important. There was strong evidence that interventions can be effective. Parental elaboration of language had less strong evidence. The role of gesture and the role of interaction with siblings and peers had the weakest evidence, but even these were quite well supported. Requirements for future research are specified. Parent–infant interaction is already established as a key factor in language development.
This study analyzes differences in academic achievement among students enrolled in vocational education compared to students in academic education at the secondary level in Chile. Using OLS, propensity score matching and sensitivity analysis we examine test score differences between 10th and 12th grades in math and language. The study provides evidence that vocational education students perform, on average, 0.28 standard deviations below similar students in academic education. There is additional evidence of differentiated effects depending on the initial achievement levels. These effects rangefrom 0.08 to 0.49 standard deviationsfor lower and higher achievers respectively. Finally, the sensitivity analysis suggests that most of these differences are important enough to be significant even in the presence of potentially strong omitted variables.
By analyzing the access of different socio-economic groups to higher education institutions by quintile, this paper examines the impact produced by higher education policies in Chile during the 1990-2003 period. To this end, CASEN household databases provide valuable information to measure: a) access of students (18-24 year-old group) by family per capita income level; b) access of students by household level of schooling; and c) access of students by household employment. Major conclusions set up that even though higher education policies have increased access to the system of economical disadvantaged students, inequity in access still persist. In order to reduce the inequity gap it is recommended to improve allocation of resources oriented to students aid programs.
In this article we start from Boudon's important, but still surprisingly neglected, distinction between `primary' and `secondary' effects in the creation of class differentials in educational attainment. Primary effects are all those, whether of a genetic or socio-cultural kind, that are expressed via the association between children's class backgrounds and their actual levels of academic performance. Secondary effects are those that are expressed via the educational choices that children from differing class backgrounds make within the range of choice that their previous performance allows them. We apply a method introduced by Erikson and Jonsson to represent the relationship between primary and secondary effects in analysing class differentials in one crucial transition within the English and Welsh educational system: that which children make at around age 16 and which determines whether or not they will pursue the higher-level academic qualifications — A-levels — that are usually required for university entry. We then use a development of this method that we have earlier proposed in order to produce quantitative estimates of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects as they operate within this transition. We show that secondary effects reinforce primary effects to a substantial extent, accounting for at least one quarter, and possibly up to one-half, of class differentials as measured by odds ratios. In conclusion, we consider some theoretical and policy implications of our findings.
Now that most UK universities have increased their tuition fees to £9,000 a year and are implementing new Access Agreements as required by the Office for Fair Access, it has never been more important to examine the extent of fair access to UK higher education and to more prestigious UK universities in particular. This paper uses Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data for the period 1996 to 2006 to explore the extent of fair access to prestigious Russell Group universities, where 'fair' is taken to mean equal rates of making applications to and receiving offers of admission from these universities on the part of those who are equally qualified to enter them. The empirical findings show that access to Russell Group universities is far from fair in this sense and that little changed following the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 and their initial increase to £3,000 a year in 2006. Throughout this period, UCAS applicants from lower class backgrounds and from state schools remained much less likely to apply to Russell Group universities than their comparably qualified counterparts from higher class backgrounds and private schools, while Russell Group applicants from state schools and from Black and Asian ethnic backgrounds remained much less likely to receive offers of admission from Russell Group universities in comparison with their equivalently qualified peers from private schools and the White ethnic group.
We analysed the Chilean university student selection processes, comparing ‘First Generation’ and ‘Continuist’ students, using the Chilean Higher Education population databases (2000–2015). Findings confirm that 60 percent of participants in the selection process are First Generation students. The data registers an increasing self‐exclusion phenomenon. Of the students who did not take the selection test after enrolling, 80 percent are First Generation and 18 are enrolled in a selective university, compared to 44 in the Continuist conglomerate. These differences may be explained by cultural capital in the Bourdieu sense, in conjunction with a diversified, massified and marketalised higher education system.
I examine the importance of non-cognitive skills in the matching process in higher education in the United States. Across two longitudinal data sources, I show that students with lower non-cognitive skills are more likely to undermatch (enrolling in less selective colleges given their academic credentials) and less likely to overmatch. The application process drives the relationship between non-cognitive skills and academic mismatch, as students with low non-cognitive skills are less likely to apply to a well-matched institution. I further show that non-cognitive skills are strong predictors of Bachelor’s degree completion. I propose an alternative definition of undermatch, which additionally considers students’ non-cognitive skills. Under this definition, a smaller share of high-achieving students undermatch in higher education.
Despite the shift from elite to mass education, the odds of accessing university remain stacked in favour of those with a university-educated parent. Not only are first-generation students less likely to engage in higher education, but the dominant narrative surrounding their enrolment emphasises cultural deficiency, constructing individuals as ‘too different’ to succeed. Drawing on data from focus groups with 198 school-aged students in Australia, this paper reframes this narrative by using the concept of familial habitus to examine how aspirations for higher education are shaped and nurtured by the home lives of prospective first-generation entrants. We develop three characterisations of familial habitus – ‘projected’, ‘meritocratic’, and ‘supportive’ – each of which demonstrates the inventive and transformative power of habitus. Cautioning against pathologising accounts of first-generation entry, we argue that the social justice motives of widening participation will be thwarted unless first-generation students are repositioned as legitimate participants in higher education.
When adolescents are asked how likely they think it is that they will go to college, does their answer influence what they will actually do? Typically, it is difficult to determine whether college expectations promote academic achievement or just reflect a reasonable forecast of what is likely to happen to them. We used a sample of siblings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health ( N = 1,766) to test whether associations between college expectations and educational attainment remained after accounting for unobserved family factors that may shape both educational expectations and attainment. Compared with their siblings, adolescents with higher college expectations were also 43% more likely to attend college, even when analyses controlled for grades and IQ. The effect of college expectations on college attendance was strongest among youths living in higher-socioeconomic-status families.
How colleges make admissions decisions at four-year institutions is facing high levels of scrutiny. Students, families, and policymakers are asking how offices of admissions decide to admit students. Increasing numbers of institutions are becoming test optional and/or using holistic admissions schemes, but little is known about how decisions are made. This exploratory study employs three modes of research to examine the use of nonacademic factors in admissions. The methodological approaches include: a qualitative meta-analysis of empirical and models of classificatory frameworks for assessing nonacademic factors in admissions, 19 qualitative interviews at 10 public and private institutions across a range of selectivity, and the analysis of relevant survey data from over 300 admissions professionals. Results indicate academic factors including grades, test scores, and rigor of courses were the most important considerations for admissions. The second most important were contextual: the use of student, family, and school background characteristics. The final set of factors used were nonacademic; the most commonly used were measures of student performance and attitudinal factors. Institutional selectivity and public or private control also had an impact on the relative importance of these factors.
Policy makers internationally are increasingly preoccupied with the need for education systems to be developed in ways that mitigate unfairness. What is more contestable is what might need to change. In England this emphasis has informed the development of fair access policies that aim to improve the representation of ‘disadvantaged’ young people of high ‘potential’ at high status universities. Drawing on research conducted at the inception of one fair access intervention, this paper provides original insights into a process of policy translation that requires multiple encodings and decodings of two constructs that defy ready definition, with their intersection being a particular point of difficulty. Behind the apparent objectivity of commonly used selection criteria sits a process of situated decision-making that incorporates not only the particularities of institutional context and the understandings of key actors, but also macro level pressures that reinforce the need for changes in understandings of fairness at the top.
It is widely documented that first-generation college students attain bachelor’s degrees at lower rates than their peers. First-generation students also consistently prioritize distance to college in their school decision-making process. How distance impacts their educational performance, however, is an issue that has not received sufficient research attention. This study uses the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09) to investigate whether the distance between the permanent residence of first-generation students enrolled in four-year degree programs and their attending college impacts their educational attainment and grade point average (GPA). We find that first-generation students who attend colleges at a greater distance from home are more likely to graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree. We do not find strong support for the relationship between distance and a student’s GPA in most years of enrollment. We discuss the way college accessibility reinforces inequality within higher education along with the theoretical implications of our findings.
Using a long panel of youths, we establish a causal link between parental expectations regarding education and educational attainment. In particular, we use an instrumental variables approach to find that the child’s chances of obtaining a high school or college degree are increasing in the parent’s expectations of the likelihood of these events. We then use differences between the objective likelihood of a child’s educational attainment and the parents’ subjective probabilities to consider the hypothesis that lower educational outcomes among certain groups are driven by a “culture of despair,” where children are low-achieving because they are expected to underachieve. While we do find that children from households with lower levels of income, wealth, and parental education are less likely to attain high school and college degrees, we reject the hypothesis that this is driven by low subjective expectations of educational success. Rather, we find that parents from disadvantaged groups have expectations for the educational outcomes of their children that differ more from the statistical likelihood of these outcomes than do parents of children from advantaged households. That is, we find that parents in more disadvantaged households are more optimistic about the educational outcomes of their children than those from more advantaged households.
Logistic regression estimates do not behave like linear regression estimates in one important respect: They are affected by omitted variables, even when these variables are unrelated to the independent variables in the model. This fact has important implications that have gone largely unnoticed by sociologists. Importantly, we cannot straightforwardly interpret log-odds ratios or odds ratios as effect measures, because they also reflect the degree of unobserved heterogeneity in the model. In addition, we cannot compare log-odds ratios or odds ratios for similar models across groups, samples, or time points, or across models with different independent variables in a sample. This article discusses these problems and possible ways of overcoming them.
La profesion –formacion- docente es un tema crucial en los actuales debates educativos. La existencia de dos decretos y el desplazamiento del verdadero sentido del ser maestro reclaman de los analisis un ejercicio de comprension del orden discursivo oficial. La calidad es el sustrato de la sociedad de control. En este marco se agencia nuevas practicas de subjetivacion del maestro los cuales podriamos situar en la calidad, flexibilidad, adaptabilidad, eficiencia, eficacia. En cualquier caso, el esfuerzo por hacer del maestro un intelectual de la educacion fue borrado. La gran cuestion consiste en saber que discursos regula el saber del docente a la luz de la sociedad de control.
National trends and goals have pushed beyond the dropout crisis and are now focused on raising the percentage of graduates prepared for college and career. This study examined a longitudinal cohort (n = 6443) of students in an urban, public school district in order to explore how districts and communities can redirect off-track high school students. The researchers explored timing to first-time college readiness in English and math using Event History Analysis. Variables under investigation included gender, first-generation college student status, college aspiration, enrollment in college preparatory courses, and participation in organized, extracurricular, college preparatory activities. Results indicated a student’s chances of being on the college-ready trajectory were highest in the 8th grade. Findings also revealed a positive association between higher parent education levels and college preparatory course enrollment, particularly in math.
Hace siete años se comenzó a aplicar en Chile la PSU, un nuevo sistema de pruebas para ingresar a la universidad. Estas nuevas pruebas estuvieron precedidas por altas expectativas en términos de las mejorías que producirían en el sistema de educación secundaria y las mayores oportunidades para los grupos más vulnerables. Este artículo revisa algunos resultados de la implementación de la PSU, centrando el análisis principalmente en temas de capacidad predictiva y equidad.
Los autores concluyen que no se advierte una mejoría en la capacidad predictiva de las pruebas PSU al aumentar los contenidos evaluados en éstas. Más aun, luego de controlar por nivel socioeconómico, se constata que el aumento de contenidos ha sido perjudicial para los estudiantes de grupos vulnerables, en especial para aquellos que provienen de la educación municipal técnico-profesional.
A la luz de las limitaciones en cuanto a equidad y capacidad predictiva de la PSU, se sugiere entonces revisar el uso que se da actualmente a ciertos puntajes de las pruebas obligatorias como puntos de cortes para asignación de beneficios y créditos.
Finalmente, dado el rol clave que juega en nuestro país el acceso a la educación universitaria en la movilidad social, se sugieren auditorías periódicas, realizadas por expertos internacionales, independientes y altamente calificados, para garantizar que el sistema de admisión cumpla con altos estándares de calidad y equidad
This paper tests whether the existence of vocationally oriented tracks within a traditionally academically oriented upper education system reduces socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment. Based on a statistical model of educational transitions and data on two entire cohorts of Danish youth, we find that (1) the vocationally oriented tracks are less socially selective than the traditional academic track; (2) attending the vocationally oriented tracks has a negative effect on the likelihood of enrolling in higher education; and (3) in the aggregate the vocationally oriented tracks improve access to lower-tier higher education for low-SES students. These findings point to an interesting paradox in that tracking has adverse effects at the micro-level but equalizes educational opportunities at the macro-level. We also discuss whether similar mechanisms might exist in other educational systems.
This article presents a method for estimating and interpreting total, direct, and indirect effects in logit or probit models. The method extends the decomposition properties of linear models to these models; it closes the much-discussed gap between results based on the “difference in coefficients” method and the “product of coefficients” method in mediation analysis involving nonlinear probability models models; it reports effects measured on both the logit or probit scale and the probability scale; and it identifies causal mediation effects under the sequential ignorability assumption. We also show that while our method is computationally simpler than other methods, it always performs as well as, or better than, these methods. Further derivations suggest a hitherto unrecognized issue in identifying heterogeneous mediation effects in nonlinear probability models. We conclude the article with an application of our method to data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988.
In a series of recent articles, Karlson, Holm, and Breen (Breen, Karlson, and Holm, 2011, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstractid=1730065; Karlson and Holm, 2011, Research in Stratification and Social Mobility 29: 221– 237; Karlson, Holm, and Breen, 2010, http://www.yale.edu/ciqle/Breen Scaling effects.pdf) have developed a method for comparing the estimated coefficients of two nested nonlinear probability models. In this article, we describe this method and the user-written program khb, which implements the method. The KHB method is a general decomposition method that is unaffected by the rescaling or attenuation bias that arises in cross-model comparisons in nonlinear models. It recovers the degree to which a control variable, Z, mediates or explains the relationship between X and a latent outcome variable, Y ∗, underlying the nonlin- ear probability model. It also decomposes effects of both discrete and continuous variables, applies to average partial effects, and provides analytically derived statistical tests. The method can be extended to other models in the generalized linear model family.
The present study examined the extent to which mothers' and fathers' expectations for their offspring's future education, their level of education, and adolescents' academic achievement predict adolescents' educational expectations. To investigate this, 230 adolescents were examined twice while they were in comprehensive school (in the 7th and 9th grades). Their parents also filled in questionnaires at the same time points. The results showed that high parental expectations concerning their offspring's future education predicted high educational expectations among adolescents and they became more similar in the 9th grade compared to 7th grade. Parents' high level of education predicted both mothers' and adolescents' high level of educational expectations in the 7th grade, which then contributed to adolescents' high expectations in 9th grade.
