Resource Stratification and Income Segregation in Brazilian and Chilean Universities

Wealthy universities enjoy advantages in accessing resources, disproportionately benefiting high-income students who are overrepresented in these institutions. Using administrative data from 2017 to 2019, the author analyzes the relationship between resource inequality and student income segregation across universities in Brazil and Chile. Both countries have significantly expanded higher education through the entry of new private institutions while introducing large-scale equity policies. The findings show comparable levels of resource inequality in both countries but greater student segregation in Chile. As a result, high-income students in Chile attend universities with 1.7 times more resources than their lower income peers compared with 1.3 times in Brazil. The public sector exhibits larger resource disparities in both countries, which is closely connected to differences in research intensity. High-income students are concentrated at well-funded public institutions that conduct most of these countries’ research, while public universities serving lower income students are more likely to be underfunded. In contrast, research disparities play a more minor role in the private sector: private universities targeting high-income niches access more resources regardless of their research capacity. The concentration of resources in a few institutions that primarily enroll high-income students is likely to lessen the equity implications of increasing participation in higher education.