ABSTRACT
Over recent decades there has been a strong expansion in the higher education systems in many countries. Researchers have investigated problems related to the passage through Higher Education (HE) or its effects on individual trajectories, whereas economic costs, the quality or the pedagogical models behind teaching at this level, have received greater attention in the media. Historically Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States offered the classical models of HE organization. The expansion of the Brazilian system was essentially carried out by the private sector, and in general there is a greater participation of students from the lower classes in this sector. In both Brazil and China quantitative expansion occurred at the same time as qualitative diversification. The processes of expansion and diversification tend to be associated on one hand with an increase in social inclusion, and on the other with alterations and even an increase in patterns of inequality.
