Socioeconomic Environment and Academic Resilience in Higher Education in Colombia

Abstract

The setting up of conditions to raise the academic achievement of students in contexts of social vulnerability is an outstanding challenge for countries that, like Colombia, experience significant social disparities that are exacerbated in the educational system. This article studies the contextual determining factors that encourage academic resilience in higher education in Colombia. To this end, changes in the probability of academic resilience attributed to institutional features (academic program, modality, legal nature of the institution) and domestic aspects (educational level of the parents, area of residence) were taken into account. To evaluate the association between the above mentioned variables, the author analyzed in a comparative study the data corresponding to students from the lowest socioeconomic groups who obtained results in the ninetieth percentile in the overall score of the Saber Pro test. The conclusion is that institutional aspects such as the field of knowledge of the program and the modality and domestic aspects such as father's education and the availabilty of internet connection increase the probability of academic resilience.