Reconfiguring higher education in Brazil: the participation of private institutions

Abstract

This article analyzes the participation of private institutions in the expansion of Higher Education in Brazil in the last five decades. The argument is that the private institutions created since 1964 differ from earlier ones. The great majority of those new institutions do not have links with religious foundations, and are structured as administrative organizations similar to enterprises. The article mentions the social conditions that have allowed the emergence of new private institutions, such as changes in the political system (1964), the implementation of the University Reform (1968), and legal measures taken by the Brazilian State in 1980 and 1990 that proposed the policies for the Higher Education system. The article also discusses certain characteristics of the configuration of current private Higher Education teaching.