Publication: Accessibility and Affordability of Tertiary Education in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru within a Global Context
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2008-03
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2012-08-13
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In the past two decades, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LCR) liberalized their economy. Together with technological advances and increased globalization, this policy has increased demand for knowledge and workers with tertiary education. LCR governments also have increased investments in education in the last two decades, for children of low-income families. As a result, graduation rates of primary and secondary education improved significantly. This increased the demand for tertiary education. As a consequence, the rate of enrollment in tertiary education in LCR has increased annually by 2 percent since 1985. In LCR countries, such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, public and non-governmental universities expanded and diversified to absorb some of the increased pool of qualified students from secondary education. However, LCR countries continue to trail high-income countries in terms of enrollment. In 2003, the tertiary education enrollment rate in high-income countries was about 62 percent compared to 26 percent for LCR countries. The goal of a recently released Working Paper is to estimate affordability and accessibility of tertiary education in selected Latin American countries. This seeks to provide more objective information for policymakers. Also, the analysis enables us to better understand the impact of student assistance policies for increased enrollment.
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“Murakami, Yuki; Blom, Andreas. 2008. Accessibility and Affordability of Tertiary Education in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru within a Global Context. en breve; No. 117. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10282 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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