The Dualism Between Mass Participation and Inequality in Mexican Higher Education

Since the mid-twentieth century, higher education in Mexico has been considered a strategic sector for national development and social mobility. Between the 1960’s and 1980’s, educational policies mainly focused on coverage and institutional growth. But after 1990’s, some other issues were introduced, all of them related to the quality of education, such as: evaluation, curriculum accreditation, reorganization of educational offer, accountability and equity (Márquez, 2004).

However, these measures have not been enough. Although, the expansion of educational opportunities is a frequent topic in the political discourses, the truth is that higher education coverage reached 33.7% last year (SEP, 2014). This figure is very far from the average of the OECD countries. The main factors that determine access and academic success in Mexico are poverty, gender, parent educational background, place of residency, the need to enter into the labor market and the household headship in the case of women (Bracho, 2005; Miller, 2009). Thus, while on one hand enrollment has grown progressively since the second half of the XXth century, on the other hand, a large proportion of people have been systematically excluded from higher education, especially those belonging to the vulnerable groups.

In this paper, we analyze the impact that public policies have had on the expansion of educational opportunities for vulnerable people. Specifically, we focus on those persons living in poverty, indigenous peoples and disabled. So far, Mexican government has implemented two important programs: the Maintenance Grants, aimed at lower-income students, and PAEIIES, for students from indigenous groups. However, up to date, there is no federal policy to assist people with disabilities that want to enter higher education. Nowadays, the enrollment rates of lower-income students in higher education is around 12%, indigenous people are between 3 and 5% and disabled students are around 5%.