Student aid programs and institutional change in Chilean universities

Abstract

During the last decades, Chilean universities have developed student aid programs at the undergraduate level in response to the increasing diversification of their students in a context of massification. Based on information gathered from a group of traditional universities (members of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities), this study analyzes the different available programs. This study not only documents the evolution of the existing programs and their relationship with public policy, but also observes that the path followed by these programs does not correspond to the categories and paradigms of change documented in the academic literature. In fact, this evolution suggests a sui generis process of modernization of Chilean universities whose outcome is still difficult to fully observe but that, nevertheless, are reconfiguring their internal dynamics and giving rise to innovative academic management experiences.