Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2021 DOI:10.1111/blar.

13237

First Generation in Chilean Higher

Education: Tension between Access
and Inclusion in a Segmented
University System
CARMEN G. JARPA-ARRIAGADA AND
CARLOS RODRÍGUEZ-GARCÉS
Universidad del Bío-Bío, Chile

We analysed the Chilean university student selection processes, compar-

ing ‘First Generation’ and ‘Continuist’ students, using the Chilean Higher
Education population databases (2000–2015). Findings confirm that 60
percent of participants in the selection process are First Generation stu-
dents. The data registers an increasing self-exclusion phenomenon. Of the
students who did not take the selection test after enrolling, 80 percent are
First Generation and 18 are enrolled in a selective university, compared to
44 in the Continuist conglomerate. These differences may be explained by
cultural capital in the Bourdieu sense, in conjunction with a diversified,
massified and marketalised higher education system.

Keywords: exclusion, first generation, higher education, segmentation,

selection.

Several studies have reported on the significant expansion of the Chilean Higher
Education system since 1980 (Espinoza and González-Fiegehen, 2015; Olavar-
ría and Allende, 2013; Leihy and Salazar, 2017; Sadlier and Arancibia, 2015;
Donoso-Díaz, 2018; Goldenberg, 2018). This expansion can be explained by the
exponential increase in vacancies due to the growth in the number of institutions
and programmes available. Until 1980, the supply of higher education in Chile was
composed only of universities (two state and six private); all received public financing
and there were approximately 165,000 students who attended. In contrast, by the end
of the 1980s, Chile had 40 universities, 80 professional institutes and 190 technical
training centres. However, between 1980 and 1990, public contributions to higher
education fell by 41 percent (OECD, 2009: 33). During the current decade, a tertiary
education system that uses market logic was installed in Chile, where state financing
was reduced and payments by young people and their families became the system’s
central financing mechanism.
The transformation and expansion of the university market means that this
educational option will no longer be a space reserved for the intellectual and/or socioe-
conomic elite, and will become a massive system. The expansion specifically impacts

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 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

young people who had been denied or had restricted access, causing a massive entry
of the country’s most vulnerable and previously excluded students (Espinoza and
González-Fiegehen, 2011; Santelices, Catalán, Horn, and Venegas, 2018; Santelices,
Horn, and Catalán, 2019a, 2019b; Santelices, Galleguillos, and Catalán, 2015). How-
ever, the massification of higher education (Fleet and Guzmán-Concha, 2017) along
with the diversification of offers and system marketisation (Brunner and Uribe, 2007)
will heterogenise the programmes offered, as well as the conditions of access to this
offer and the educational and socioeconomic profiles of the student population arriving
in the university classrooms.
The present study explores the distinctive characteristics of the ‘First Generation’
students in higher education and compares them to ‘Continuist’ students. Statistically,
in descriptive and inferential terms, we analyse the behaviour of both conglomerates
during the different phases of the unique processes of admission to Chilean universities
(registration, test completion, results, application and enrolment). We also discuss the
harmful effects of a mass market system that, despite its expansion in offers, has not yet
overcome issues of educational inclusion of young people with less cultural capital.

The Chilean Higher Education System

In Chile there is a conglomerate of Selective Universities that can be both public and
private, which are governed by SAS (Single Admission System), ordering their applicants
according to the results of the UST (University Selection Test) and their educational
trajectory in secondary education.
The SAS is an integrated, simultaneous and national process that is used for all tradi-
tional universities in Chile. The instrument used for student selection is the UST exam,
which consists of a set of standardised tests. The exam is divided into two compulsory
tests (Mathematics and Language) and two electives (Science and History). The UST is
built on the basis of high school curriculums, emphasising content and cognitive skills.
On the other hand, there is a large conglomerate of private universities that do not
participate in the SAS (more than 30), but operate with educational market logic and
recruit students according to varied mechanisms and admission systems. Basically, they
do not solicit UST results, but require only registration and tuition payment.
Regarding the demand, it is irrefutable that access to higher education has grown
substantially. By 2015, there were 1,234,380 students enrolled in higher education insti-
tutions, of which 57.6 percent corresponded to university education (CNED, 2015).
Historic rates were reached for the population of 19- to 24-year-olds (nearly 38 percent)
(Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, 2015). However, transition from a selective university
system to a massive one has not diminished persistent gaps between the rich and the
poor (Uribe, Espinoza, and González-Fiegehen, 2008). The Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Chilean Ministry of Education have
faced significant difficulties regarding access to higher education due to desertion during
secondary education, poor educational achievements and vast segmentation (Ministerio
de Educación, 2010, 2013; OECD, 2004, 2009). Uribe et al., in reference to coverage
in higher education, stated that ‘according to the data from the CASEN survey, while
coverage in quintile I varied from 4.0 to 15 percent, it grew in quintile V from 40 to 74
percent in the 1990–2003 period’ (Uribe et al. 2008: 37). In other words, in the period
analysed by these authors, every time a young person from quintile I accesses higher
education, five young people from quintile V do as well; this an issue that confirms
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 First Generation in Chilean Higher Education

inequality in Chile. In fact, according to data from the World Bank, Chile ranks 6th
in Latin America and 14th in the global inequality ranking, with a Gini index of 50.5
(Banco Mundial, 2015).
The rapid expansion and democratisation of access has diversified university student
profiles, giving space to the emergence of a new denomination in the educational scene:
First Generation students (Castillo and Cabezas, 2010; Collier and Morgan, 2008;
Jehangir, 2013; Thomas and Quinn, 2007). This theoretical entity mentions the student
who enters the university without their parents having achieved it.
The configuration of this conglomerate has grown gradually and is currently posi-
tioned in relevant magnitudes. Approximately 70 percent of the total enrolments in ter-
tiary education programmes in the first year are First Generation students (SIES, 2018).
Therefore, for a significant proportion of young people, being First Generation consti-
tutes a primordial link with the higher education system that puts their meagre cultural
capital at stake, in Bourdieu’s sense, compared to Continuist students (students whose
parents obtained tertiary education). Analysing this student conglomerate is therefore
imperative in Chile since, if the higher education system continues to expand its cover-
age, it will do so from the youth population considered to be First Generation.

First Generation Students or ‘First in Family’

The meta-analysis of the international evidence regarding family members who enter
Higher Education for the first time accounts for two conceptualisations, which, despite
differences, share common characteristics. In this study, we refer to the term First Gener-
ation, which is predominantly used in theoretical constructs in the US and Europe, and
the term ‘First in Family’, which is more commonly used in Australia and Oceania.
The American and European evidence regarding First Generation states that: (a)
to determine access to higher education, parental education is more important than
employment or financial status; (b) social class is directly related to access to higher
education; (c) students often opt for part-time or short-term study programmes to
make their studies compatible with their work schedules; (d) students often access more
recovery classes than the Continuist students; (e) students defected more and were
less successful academically in general; (f) students had serious difficulties ‘managing
their time’ and complying with the requested academic activities; and (g) students had
fewer external resources to support student integration (Collier and Morgan, 2008;
Hunt and Seiver, 2018; Jehangir, 2013; Nunez and Cuccaro-Alamin, 1998; Thomas
and Quinn, 2007). In summary, the review of these studies reveals that First Generation
students have been isolated and marginalised within the institution. These students
have often lacked the cultural capital necessary in order to integrate properly within the
university and, once graduated, they have received lower income for their jobs.
Meanwhile, the First in Family studies indicate: (a) an increase in access to higher
education through equity quotas; (b) tension between access and inclusion in university
life due to the habitus of the institution and of the students themselves; (c) low or disad-
vantaged socioeconomic status with respect to the traditional student; (d) a relationship
between low socioeconomic level and abandonment; (e) the relationship between aca-
demic success and cultural capital of families; and (f) obvious educational disadvantages
experienced by First in Family youths (Brunken and Delly, 2011; Devlin, 2013; Luzeckyi,
McCann, Charmaine, Sharron, and Jacqui, 2017; Meuleman, Garrett, Wrench, and
King, 2015; O’Shea, 2015; O’Shea, Lysaght, Roberts, and Harwood, 2016).

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 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

Therefore, we can affirm that this new category of students in Higher Education
tends to present equivalent characteristics of educational disadvantage compared to its
traditional pair due to socio-familial and cultural conditions. This specifically refers
to young people, but can also refer to the adult population, indigenous groups and
migrants seeking to continue their studies and overcome historical exclusion conditions.
For purposes of this article, we will use the terms First Generation and First in Family
interchangeably.
It can be inferred from international studies that the differences in cultural capital
in First Generation students have given way to new challenges for the higher education
system, especially in terms of reinforcement, levelling or creating retention programmes
to avoid dropouts, and modifying teaching processes in classrooms considering the dis-
tinct characteristics of First in Family students (Brunken and Delly, 2011; Devlin and
O’Shea, 2011; James et al., 2008). In effect, the First Generation conglomerate has com-
paratively lower levels of achievement, higher probabilities of not graduating and longer
stays to complete their studies, with intense collateral consequences of heavy debts, frus-
tration and disappointment. In this regard, it is worth highlighting the point made by
O’Shea, Lysaght, et al. (2016), who affirm that higher education institutions continue to
be colonised with discourses that emphasise the deficit, attributing this responsibility to
the student and explaining the desertion from the deficiencies of the subject itself. The
researchers affirm that success is still marked by the implementation of cultural capital,
rather than by academic talent itself, which makes it necessary to address the beliefs that
the academic staff of universities have about inclusion.
Chilean studies confirm that First Generation youth belong to families from the low-
est income quintiles with little inherited cultural capital, in Bourdieu’s sense, and with
low levels of achievement on the UST (Castillo and Cabezas, 2010; Centro de Políti-
cas Comparadas de Educación, 2009). Therefore, educational segmentation in Chile
is relevant and constitutes a political, social, economic and cultural problem that can
undermine the foundations of social coexistence and peace, one of its derivatives being
the effect it has on achievement. Factors such as socioeconomic level and family cul-
tural capital primarily explain differences in performance, among both students and
establishments (Donoso and Schiefelbein, 2007; Román, 2013).

Bourdieu and Cultural Capital Reproduction

When distinguishing between First Generation and Continuist students, we incorporate
the notion of cultural capital in the sense that Bourdieu gives: the set of cultural or
linguistic competences inherited in processes of socialisation, which are directly related
to the family scope of class. We highlight the overlap between the institutions of family
and school in the socialisation process: family as a distinctive source of social class
and habitus associated with structured constructs inherited from birth, and school as
a source of academic capital, understood as a cultural capital variant, associated with
arbitrary education or curriculum (Bourdieu, 2006; Bourdieu and Passeron, 2005,
2003).
Specifically, we understand First Generation as students who enter higher education
without their mother or father having done so. We associate the null academic prepa-
ration of the mother and father with a lack of cultural capital, since it is one of the
relevant factors being transmitted through socialisation and by the relationship between
educational level and social class. In this regard, there is abundant empirical evidence
that associates First Generation students with low cultural capital (Booi, Vincent, and
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 First Generation in Chilean Higher Education

Liccardo, 2017; Davies, Qiu, and Davies, 2014; Frisancho and Krishna, 2016; Noble
and Davies, 2009; Wadhwa, 2018).

Educational Exclusion and Segregation

We understand exclusion as a process of historical accumulation, opposed to the notion
of a simple event. Thus, we cannot speak of students at risk of exclusion, but rather of
social and educational conditions which represent a context of risk and vulnerability to
entering the university (Castro, Rodríguez-Gómez, and Gairín, 2017), and subsequently
persevering and graduating. The phenomenon of exclusion is configured in a diffused
path between the implementation of inclusion policies for access, and exclusion as a
multi-factorial manifestation of social reproduction associated with socio-economic dif-
ferences, cultural capital (Giraldo-Zuluaga, 2015), and components of an institutional
nature.
In the analysis of exclusion we note a paradoxical configuration between two aspects:
(a) an inclusion policy that provides free registration to the UST, which has almost uni-
versal coverage and is implemented to prevent economic cost from becoming an initial
obstacle; and (b) a peculiar manifestation of exclusion, expressed in ‘self-exclusion’
prior to selection; that is, a significant number of young people do not take the test,
despite having registered for it. The conceptual inclusion/exclusion, or ‘exclusionary
inclusion’ device (Ezcurra, 2011), constitutes an expression of educational trajectory by
First Generation or First in Family students, a phenomenon associated with educational
segregation.
The study of educational segregation in Chile has acquired relevance, both because
of the international evidence provided by OECD (OECD, 2004, 2009, 2013), and
by various local studies (Bellei, 2013; Carrasco, Contreras, Elacqua, Flores, and
Mizala, 2014; Flores and Carrasco, 2013; Ruffinelli and Guerrero, 2009) that confirm
Chile as a country whose educational system is one of the most segregated in the
world. This segmentation, according to class, originates from the educational reform
in the 1980s that established a new financing model (voucher) with a market focus
(Fleet and Guzmán-Concha, 2017). This segmentation, although it is a historical ten-
dency, has deepened post-dictatorship during reforms persisting in the same logic. The
introduction of economic logic became one more component of the social exclusion
phenomenon, in a scenario of intense erosion of the essential foundations of citizenship
(Giraldo-Zuluaga, 2015). Consequently, the university would be nothing more than a
space for the social reproduction of mechanisms of differentiation and segmentation
associated with belonging to a certain social class.
Segregation operates through mechanisms of student concentration such as perfor-
mance, socioeconomic status, residence, social class or ethnicity (Webb, Canales, and
Becerra, 2017). It is a complex and multi-factorial collective phenomenon resulting
from the rational decisions of different agents, mainly families and schools, who fail
to elucidate consequences or aggregate effects of their own actions, such as the loss
of social cohesion (Elacqua and Santos, 2013). In the area of higher education, this
segmentation is expressed in selectivity, barriers of access, permanence and terminal
efficiency (Drotos and Cilesiz, 2016) in the concentration of vulnerable students in
certain degree programmes, usually of lower status and economic return; in short, it
feeds the reproduction of social differences that manage to eclipse the promise of social
mobility or reclassification for Bourdieu.

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 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

Methodology
This study corresponds to an ex post-facto, observational, descriptive and populational
design. We used historical databases of the processes of the SAS to Higher Education
system from 2000 to 2015. These populational, official and public records were provided
by DEMRE (Department of Evaluation, Measurement and Educational Registration)
and include all students who, having graduated from secondary education, seek access
to selective university education.
The educational and socio-familial information and results of the admission process
were stored in a repository using an ID as the unique identifier code of each student,
which safeguards ethical requirements and statistical secrecy.
The participation of 283,080 students was recorded in 2015, of whom 72 percent
(203,930) were of the year’s promotion. Students applied for 1423 programmes, taught
by 33 universities, 25 belonging to the Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades de Chile
(CRUCH, CRCU) and eight are private universities, which subscribe to the SAS.
In terms of distinctive attributes, the population in 2015 had a slightly higher presence
of females (52 percent), most of whom had recently graduated from secondary education
(72 percent), who belonged to the Humanista Diurna Scientific Branch (approximately
60 percent), and one third had graduated from public institutions.
Through a cohort design, trajectories in the university admission process for the
First Generation and Continuist conglomerates were analysed from 2000 to 2015. Both
conglomerates were constructed on the basis of parental educational attributes. For
each year we explored the socio-familial and educational attributes of the applicants,
scores obtained in different admissions tests, the results of their applications and, finally,
information regarding their effective registration and in which programme. Along with
preliminary data exploration, the conglomerates (First Generation and Continuist) were
configured according to the parental education attribute (higher education studies).
For comparative purposes, the Continuist and First Generation conglomerates were
defined and segmented according to presence/absence in higher education studies by one
of their parents as a distinctive attribute of the student’s cultural capital. Information
regarding parental educational levels, a constituent part of characterising applicants for
each year of the university admission process, was added to the UST Results and Postula-
tion databases once recategorised and defined in terms of presence/absence. This made
it possible to characterise differentiated profiles from both conglomerates in different
phases of the process.
According to the objectives, information regarding Continuist and First Generation
students was reduced to summary indexes as percentages and means, represented by
flow charts and contingency tables.

Results
During the process of admission in 2015, approximately 280,000 students, most having
recently graduated from secondary education (72 percent), completed the UST. As shown
in Table 1, of this contingent, 62.4 percent sought to be the first members of their family
to participate in higher education. This high proportion constitutes a historical constant
for the admission process in the last fifteen years, with the relative independence of the
year under analysis. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we observed a notable increase since
2007. In fact, it is from that year that the proportion of First Generation students who

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 First Generation in Chilean Higher Education

Table 1. University Selection Process, 2000–2015

Continuist applicant First Generation applicant ‘Excluded applicant’

General % did % % did % GA
applicant % not Registered not did not % Not
Registering complete % for the complete % complete selected.
Year USTa USTb Selec.c USTd USTe Selec.f USTg PGh

2000* 66.3 2.5 41.0 59.8 3.9 21.5 70.0 66.3

2001* 67.1 2.3 39.5 58.9 4.0 22.1 71.2 64.8
2002* 63.3 2.2 38.8 59.7 3.9 21.7 72.1 65.4
2003* 64.1 2.3 40.4 59.7 3.9 22.8 71.8 65.7
2004 62.6 2.5 42.0 55.1 4.6 27.9 69.2 60.4
2005 61.4 3.1 43.0 58.4 4.4 27.6 66.6 64.0
2006 60.5 2.7 43.4 58.9 3.6 27.5 66.1 64.6
2007 78.7 5.6 41.7 65.7 15.0 23.7 83.6 71.6
2008 78.3 4.9 40.9 64.7 12.1 22.6 82.0 70.6
2009 89.9 6.4 38.5 65.8 15.2 20.6 82.2 71.3
2010 97.8 5.6 39.1 66.9 13.9 20.4 83.6 72.6
2011 98.9 5.9 39.4 66.7 15.7 20.7 84.1 72.4
2012 94.0 7.8 59.8 64.7 17.7 29.3 81.0 74.6
2013 99.1 7.1 60.5 64.3 17.3 29.3 81.9 74.7
2014 98.0 7.1 59.4 63.0 17.2 29.5 81.0 73.3
2015 98.6 6.3 57.4 62.4 15.4 28.3 80.7 72.4

Source: Compiled by authors using data from DEMRE (2000–2015).

Notes: (*) Corresponds to the Academic Aptitude Test.
a
Proportion of high school graduates who enrol in UST in the year of graduation.
b
Proportion of Continuist applicants having registered for the UST but who did not complete it.
c
Proportion of selected Continuist applicants.
d
Proportion of First Generation applicants with respect to the total number of applicants who registered
for the UST.
e
Proportion of First Generation applicants who did not complete the UST after having registered for it,
with respect to the total number of First Generation applicants.
f
Proportion of selected First Generation applicants.
g
Proportion of First Generation applicants who did not complete the UST after having registered for it,
with respect to the total applicants who did not complete the UST.
h
Proportion of First Generation applicants who were not selected from the total selected.

completed the UST increased significantly, reaching values from 62.4 percent in 2015 to
66.7 percent in 2011. Before 2005, the same proportion ranged between 51.5 and 59.8
percent.
Moreover, Table 1 shows a growing and sustained trend over time in the demand for
access to higher education, especially for students who graduated from secondary school
in the same year as their application. As of 2007, participating in the admission process
to higher education in Chile has become almost mandatory for recently graduated stu-
dents of secondary education. At the beginning of the analysed period, 66.3 percent of
all recent graduates expressed their desire to access higher education. In 2015, affiliation
to the system was 99 percent.
Registration for the SAS in Chile requires the possession of a secondary school
diploma, which certifies the quality of secondary school graduates. The Academic
Aptitude Test (AAT) was valid until 2003, the date on which the instrument was

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 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

modified and renamed the University Selection Test (UST). Registering for the AAT and
the UST implied high costs for students until 2006. A reform consisting in a monetary
subsidy was introduced in 2007 to finance UST costs. Due to the broad coverage of this
subsidy, the UST is almost universally free for high school graduates of the same year.
While the AAT was in force and UST costs were very restrictive, students were com-
pelled to make the decision regarding whether or not to take the exam in advance,
because enrolment required the disbursement of financial resources. This could explain
why percentages of effective AAT application reached 96 percent of those enrolled, with
exclusion rates that bordered 4 percent, without differentiating the status of First Gen-
eration students. In effect, during the 2000–2006 period, the proportion of Continuist
applicants who registered for the UST but did not complete it was 2.5 percent on average
for the period, fluctuating between 3.1 in 2005 and 2.2 percent in 2002. Meanwhile, in
the conglomerate ‘First Generation Applicant’, this figure was slightly higher at 4 percent
on average and fluctuated between 3.6 percent in 2006 and 4.6 percent in 2004.
The proportion of students excluded from the admission process, either because they
did not register or because they did not take the UST, maintained a similar behaviour
until 2007. As of this date, there has been a significant and consistent increase in the mass
of students who registered for the UST but did not complete the test, a figure that quadru-
ples the figures from before 2006 and that is especially high among the First Generation
applicants. For the Continuist applicants during the 2007–2015 periods, the average
exclusion rates were 6.5 percent, with the exception of 2008 where they appeared to
be more moderate. On the other hand, in the First Generation applicant group, the
proportion of self-excluded students is significantly higher for the same period (15.9
percent on average). By 2015, for each self-excluded person belonging to the Continuist
applicant conglomerate, there were 2.4 self-excluded students in the First Generation
conglomerate.
By 2015, 13.5 percent of the students who registered for the UST did not complete
it, and of these, 80 percent were students seeking to be the First Generation in higher
education. In effect, given the high contingent of First Generation applicants registering
for the UST, this same tendency is observed in the conglomerate that registered for the
UST but did not complete it. During the entire period analysed in the self-excluded seg-
ment of the admission process, 77.6 percent were First Generation with fluctuations of
approximately 6.2 percentage points. This trend distinguishes two periods of differenti-
ated behaviour with a turning point in 2007.
Not only does the possibility of registering and completing the UST offer different
probabilities according to the profile of the candidate student, but these differences are
extended to the results of the selection process itself. During the entire period anal-
ysed, approximately one out of every two Continuist applicants on average who effec-
tively completed the UST was accepted into a programme of a selective university (45.3
percent). This figure differs significantly from what was observed for First Generation
applicants, which reached a low average of 24.7 percent. Currently, three out of every
four First Generation applicants who complete the UST do not successfully complete
the selection process, and the gaps differentiating one conglomerate from the other have
been strongly accentuated, especially since 2012, with 103 percent acceptance in 2015.
Figure 1 shows that of every 100 First Generation students who register for the UST,
only 85 students actually complete the exam. This proportion is 94 out of every 100 in
the Continuist group. Passing the 450 UST point requirement in this selection process is a
particularly complex barrier to overcome for First Generation students. Out of every 100
registered First Generation students, only 49 manage to overcome this requirement set by
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 First Generation in Chilean Higher Education

Figure 1. Flow Diagram of University Admission Process Trajectory by Type of Applicant, 2015.

First
Generation

Register for Test UST >450 UST >500 Selected Enrolled

UST completion 49 31 24 18
100 85

Continuist

Register for Test UST >450 UST >500 Selected Enrolled

UST completion 79 65 54 44
100 94

Source: DEMRE (2015)

the university system for the right to apply to programmes and institutions adhering to
the SAS. In the Continuist student conglomerate, we observe that of every 100 applicants
who register for the UST, 79 of them pass the 450 point barrier and only 65 pass the 500
point barrier, establishing different behaviour with respect to First Generation students.
Only 18 out of every 100 First Generation students who started the application pro-
cess in 2015 actually formalise their enrolment option, while for Continuist applicants,
44 out of 100 actually enrol. Therefore, 2.4 Continuist students enrol for every First
Generation applicant who enrols in higher education regulated by the SAS.

Discussion
It is irrefutable that Chile has experienced an explosive increase in access to Higher
Education. Figures indicate that today, more than 1 million young people have achieved
the goal of accessing this educational level, reaching historic coverage rates for the age
range of 18 to 24 years. Findings have shown a turning point that started in 2007 that
could be explained by the concomitance of two factors: first, the consolidation of the
UST and, second, the installation of state subsidies designated to finance registration
costs.
The demand for a higher level of education, increases in educational offers and the
installation of inclusion policies through scholarships and subsidies has led to a signifi-
cant increase in the participation of social groups whose educational expectations were
previously impeded or strongly prevented (Castillo and Cabezas, 2010; Donoso and
Cancino, 2007; Thomas and Quinn, 2007). Our data indicate that six out of ten stu-
dents participating in the university selection process seek to become a First Generation
student in higher education.
Our data report that when taking the UST costed more, it represented a barrier to
entering the university selection process; therefore, the decision to register and complete
the exam was made in advance, always influenced by habitus, social class and cultural
capital. It appeared that the economic cost constituted an efficient mechanism to segment
the contingent of more vulnerable students.
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 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

Paradoxically, when registration for the UST became free, the proportion of appli-
cants who have registered for the exam but did not complete it increased; this is a figure
two times higher than it was before 2007 for the Continuist applicants and four times
greater for the First Generation applicants. By 2015, one out of every seven First Gener-
ation students did not take the selection tests despite having registered for them, and of
the total contingent that did not take it, more than 80 percent belong to this conglomer-
ate. The appearance of this significant amount of self-exclusion reveals the complexity
of the inclusion–exclusion phenomenon (Ezcurra, 2011).
Gratuity does not necessarily imply access or the decision of students to participate
in a selection process from which they are perceived to be excluded early on. Also,
access is not a sufficient guarantee of permanence, especially when the experience is
foreign to a university system that exhibits tensions with inclusion and that does not
guarantee continuity and quality learning, despite the dedication and effort exhibited
(Carpenter and Peña, 2017; Quaresma and Valenzuela, 2017). Even the well-intentioned
remedial or compensatory action agenda for handicapped student entrance can reload
the student because of his/her First in Family status (Brunken and Delly, 2011; Meule-
man et al., 2015; O’Shea, Lysaght, et al., 2016). In practice, the implementation of
pro-inclusion policies (such as free registration, scholarships and equity quotas) can have
the unintentional effect of camouflaging exclusion or self-exclusion as an individual phe-
nomenon, attributable exclusively to the student. Given that this phenomenon of inclu-
sion/exclusion occurs in a broadly enhanced and diversified university system with sig-
nificant increases in coverage and access opportunities, it tends to be assumed that when
students do not achieve expected results (exam completion, sufficient scores, registra-
tion, permanence, timely graduation) it is due solely to their own faults (O’Shea, 2015;
O’Shea, Stone, Delahunty, and May, 2016).
Under our theoretical perspective, the inclusion/exclusion phenomenon is strongly
conditioned by the reproduction of inequalities which, in Chile, are structural in nature.
That is, we continue to witness strong differences between social classes sustained in the
class habitus, conditioned by cultural, academic and social capital. Conditions that are
accentuated by a school system consciously structured by social classes (OECD, 2004).
The school not only cannot instal added value in the poorest students, but also increases
cultural capital gaps between social classes during the school trajectory (Donoso and
Hawes, 2002). This inequality continues in the processes of higher education admission,
because although the UST is aligned with the curricular contents of Secondary Educa-
tion, not all schools reach the same curricular coverage (Catalan and Santelices, 2014).
Therefore, in contexts of educational segmentation, cultural capital significantly affects
the school experience, its quality and projection, which makes the UST an extension of
the inequalities of origin (Contreras, Corbalán and Redondo, 2007; Contreras, Gallegos
and Meneses, 2009; Larroucau, Ríos and Mizala, 2015).
On the other hand, when we compared the levels of effectively completing the UST
exam by the former applicants, that is, graduates from before the development of the
current admission process, similar participation rates were observed during the pre-
and post-gratuity periods. This type of applicant, unlike the new or recently gradu-
ated applicant, did not receive state subsidy for enrolment. We observed that, for this
group, effective exam completion rates were close to 95 percent during the analysed
period, which affirmed that when applicants must assume the economic cost of the UST,
the mandatory performance of this rite operates with greater intensity. However, sim-
ply making the UST a universal application exam is not a direct expression of a higher
level of equity. The existence of structural segmentation problems in formative processes
© 2021 Society for Latin American Studies
10 Bulletin of Latin American Research
 First Generation in Chilean Higher Education

based on socio-familial profiles and the social class of the parents renders selection pro-
cesses a difficult obstacle to overcome for certain groups of students, particularly the
First Generation conglomerate.
The differences evidenced constitute an expression of class inequality, consistently
studied by international organisations. In fact, despite the growing expansion and diver-
sification of students in higher education, the gap between the rich and the poor persists,
with educational and economic inequality being the main obstacle for these young peo-
ple’s access to selective tertiary education. Undoubtedly, students who seek to be First
Generation and who obtain a low UST score are unable to access programmes in selective
institutions that have a more effective record towards graduation, positions of influence
and economic prosperity (Santelices et al., 2015).
In this sense, the First Generation student phenomenon, often exploited as an example
of the success of the Chilean educational policy, can be largely explained by private offers
and the existence of scarcely selective and segmented quality programmes (Espinoza
and González-Fiegehen, 2015). This event not only modifies student profiles in higher
education, but instals greater complexities in the work of their formation as well. This
is demonstrated by low levels of internal efficiency which, although segmented, show
the higher education system expressed in high levels of student failure and disapproval.
This educational efficiency problem strongly impacts First Generation students, not only
frustrating their personal and family expectations, but also having an impact on social
cohesion, with an added factor of economic debt that brings serious social consequences.
A more thorough examination of the figures indicates that the substantial increase
in access has not been able to effectively reduce the social and educational segmen-
tation of the tertiary system. Discrimination and exclusion mechanisms can certainly
become more sophisticated, but they are still determined by social origin and cultural
capital, where the score on the Admission Test constitutes an important obstacle to
accessing selective offers. These data are consistent with international studies (James
et al., 2008; O’Shea, 2015; O’Shea et al., 2016; O’Shea, Stone et al., 2016), as they
reveal that Higher Education has become more complex and fragmented, maintaining
disadvantage in young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Jury et al., 2017),
while failure is attributed exclusively to their own faults, which leaves the promise of
university success pending.
Educational segmentation is expressed in different behaviours exhibited by the two
conglomerates studied. The literature indicates that although students have greater
access to the UST, of the total number of students who exclude themselves from the
process, 80 percent are First Generation. Also, it becomes clear that achievement levels
are dissimilar upon examination of the admission process. Three out of four First
Generation students who complete the UST do not successfully complete the admission
process, resulting in new categories of segregation: those who access selective education
and those who access non-selective education.
The introduction of market logic in Chile has undoubtedly shaped a massive, diver-
sified and privatised neoliberal system of higher education (Kubal and Fisher, 2016).
However, it has also consolidated the enthroned system of social, economic and cultural
segregation which helps to maintains Chile’s status as one of the most unequal countries
within the OECD, where universities are no more than the social reproduction of such
mechanisms. Following the approach by James et al. (2008), we postulate that a truly
inclusive university should provide early intervention for high school students in order to
instal ‘soft’ and academic skills to facilitate their continuity in higher education, effec-
tively improving access and permanence in a more equal manner, and facilitating the
© 2021 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 11
 Carmen G. Jarpa-Arriagada and Carlos Rodríguez-Garcés

process of transition through the accompaniment of affirmative tutorial action to those

starting their university career as ‘First Generation’ students. This process would also
restructure curriculums and teaching methods to reduce cultural incongruence, strength-
ening the relationship between success and academic talent in a way that controls the
excessive relevance of cultural capital in university contexts when defining academic
trajectories (Ruiz and Aguilar, 2017).

Conclusions
The issue examined in this work is the persistent educational segmentation in Chile
between two globally recognised demographic conglomerates: First Generation students
and Continuist students. Our data confirm what has been reported internationally: the
Chilean First Generation student still experiences difficulties regarding access; how-
ever, Chile registers historical rates of coverage in Higher Education, reaching system
universality.
The massification and universalisation of the system, as well as the entry of these
new young people to higher education, are seen as an achievement. Thus, if this system
continues to grow, it will necessarily do so at the expense of those young people who
have not yet had that opportunity: the First Generation conglomerate. It is therefore
highly relevant to analyse this conglomerate in order to understand what happens after
the student enters the university. It is essential to broaden quantitative and qualitative
studies to clarify these students’ difficulties and their experiences, as well as to reveal the
academic habitus phenomenon that affects their trajectories, their permanence and their
success or failure.
The results presented in this study are relevant because they lay bare the tensions in
pro-inclusion policies and the way those policies disguise exclusion or self-exclusion as
an individual phenomenon, attributable only to the student’s choices or faults. In this
sense, neoliberal logic colonises the public discourse and understands that if a student
fails, it is often because they did not have sufficient merits to access, or the resources to
remain in and graduate from tertiary studies. We aim to enhance this explanation and
contribute data for the clarification of existing conditions in higher education institutions
as reproducers of inequality through segregation mechanisms still enthroned within the
system.
The inclusion/exclusion phenomenon that operates in Chile and internationally must
continue to be critically analysed in order to deactivate mechanisms that reproduce
inequalities that still operate on the differences of social class and that are expressed,
finally, in the social, academic and cultural capital of First Generation students
worldwide.

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