Impact of financial aid in vocational and college enrollment (Abstract)

We aimed to evaluate the impact of governmental financial aid in vocational and college enrollment, solving the endogenous process in the application to benefits. Using a two-step instrumental varia- bles procedure, we found that college financial aid increases college enrollment by 30%. Being selected to college financial aid reduces the probability of vocational enrollment, although only vocational financial aid does increases this probability, which may be understood as a substitution effect.

University Dropouts, a sociological approach to the decision making process of the students (Abstract)

How to explain the phenomenon of college students drop out? This work aims to disclose a proposed explanatory model that addresses this issue from the educational decision making process of youth under the conceptual framework of sociology of education, specifically through analytical research program of “school choice depending on the social position”, proposed by the French sociologist Raymond Boudon (1983), which conceptualizes the educational decisions of students and their families in terms of expectations related instrumental maintain position in the social structure, education and defensive strategy, which incorporates beliefs about the academic, economic and social benefits associated future educational credentials, and perceived limitations on the structure of opportunities own social origin; also integrating precisions and theoretical reformulations by Ri- chard Breen and John Goldthorpe (1997) on minimum educational thresholds by social class; and the conceptualization of instrumental and intrinsic preferences in relation to the education of agents developed by Diego Gambetta (1987).

Social Trajectories of first generation’s rural subjects accessing to university education in the Maule Region, Chile

This paper aims to illustrate the social history of first generation’s rural youth accessing to the uni- versity in the Maule region, Chile. In a society wherein education has become the most important positions allocation mechanism, there is a need for a reflection on the conditions of production and distribution of knowledge/power in an economically vibrant and socially exclusionary social order.

It is possible to evidence that rural areas in the Maule region have both a diverse distribution of goods and assets and an uneven location of markets and institutions. Additionally, the milieu affects the individual portfolio opportunities by either restricting or granting the access to quality services. Higher education acts as a conversion strategy for a young low-income people, because it allows social mobility and breaking off the collective inertia. Simultaneously, higher education also represents a reproduction’s mechanism. Although young people obtain a higher quality of life by graduating from a university, such graduations does not necessarily imply a better social status.