Transition to Tertiary Education in Chile : Analysis of Unconditional and Conditional Effects of Social Inequalities in Educational Opportunities

We investigate to what extent the access to a diversified higher education system is influenced by socioeconomic background, and study the extent for which academic performance and parental educational expectations influence access for different types of higher educational institutions. We use a unique longitudinal census data set from an entire student cohort covering a national assessment in 10th grade and higher education enrollment in Chile, a country with a distinctive choice-driven higher education system. The pathways through which socioeconomic background affects the attainment of tertiary-level qualifications differ significantly between private universities, public universities and vocational tertiary institutions. Average-academic performance children of high-SES families with high expectations, strategically choose to enroll into private universities to avoid downward mobility, while the golden route to public universities is chosen by high-academic performance children whose parents had high educational expectations, irrespective of their socioeconomic background