Strategies for student support in university entrance in Argentina in the last two decades. new mechanisms or generalization and visibility of existing actions?

Abstract

The process of massification of higher education that has taken place worldwide since the middle of the 20th century has had different repercussions in each country. It led to the emergence of new problems linked not only to the structure of higher education institutions but also to the profile of students who began to enter higher education. In effect, it allowed the entry of social sectors previously excluded from tertiary education. Soon after, however, it became evident that this process of enrollment expansion faced serious limitations, including high dropout rates and low graduation rates. Consequently, a process of differentiation and diversification of higher education began to take hold. Two characteristics stand out in particular: on the one hand, an increasing number of students and, on the other hand, the implementation of different mechanisms for leveling admission. In this paper we will argue that these mechanisms arose as a response to the process of massification that made possible the access of an increasingly heterogeneous population. In particular, we are interested in analyzing the case of Argentina, framed within a global process of transformation of the university system. To this end, we propose to analyze the institutional policies implemented in national universities since the 1990s, which became visible in the last decade within the framework of the third wave of university expansion (2008-20015).