Conclusion: Learning from the Past to Shape Future Policies Towards Equity in Higher Education

Abstract

AbstractThe concluding chapter highlights that the commitment with equity in the analysed contexts has increased social justice and contributed to a reduction of social inequalities. However, the policies employed to improve equity are not homogenous since they depend on the local, educational, historical, economic and political conditions that favour the persistence of social inequalities and on the levels at which inequalities occur (access, institutional stratification, retention or attainment). Although massification of higher education systems seems to have allowed the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, the competition is now mostly occurring for places in the most prestigious institutions and study programmes. The winners continue to be students of high socioeconomic status, who benefit from a number of advantages: access to information, lower aversion to debt, better previous schooling and academic achievement or higher expectations. The chapter critically discusses the policies that need to acknowledge the fact that inequalities persist at other levels, despite the massification of participation.