Access policies to higher education: from merit to expansion and democratization

This article provides a contextualized analysis of the different forms of access to higher education in Brazil, considering its historical evolution. It employs a historical-dialectical approach as the analytical framework, understanding that the analysis of a social phenomenon should take into account the context in which it originated, exploring its mediations and contradictions. The article starts from the assumption that access to higher education has generally been elitist and exclusionary, considering the demand for this level of education and the availability of slots, thereby highlighting the issue of merit. This situation undergoes changes with the implementation of access democratization policies in the country since the 1990s, which utilize the Unified Selection System (SiSU) through the National High School Exam (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio – ENEM). The article concludes that although these measures have expanded access for populations from less privileged classes to higher education, they have also generated other factors that compromise access democratization and increase dropout rates.