ABSTRACT
Higher education in colonial Brazil had been, basically, religious education controlled by the Jesuits. In the half century from the founding of the Republic to the Second World War, higher education grew slowly with enrollments rising to 27,000 or twelve times their level in 1889. The new regime, in response, permitted rapid expansion of the higher educational system to accommodate middle class enrollments, thus providing an avenue for increasing upward social mobility. The educational background of faculty illustrates a qualitative difference among the segments of the higher education system. More important to the quality of higher education than the working of market forces has been the development of a national policy in the postrevolution period. The final objective of postgraduate education policy, to develop a cadre of high-level technicians, engineers and managers needed to administer national development, led to the distinction between degree and nondegree graduate programs.
