Una aproximación al espacio de las instituciones universitarias argentinas

Abstract

This article presents a first description of the social space that makes up university institutions in Argentina (national, provincial and private universities and institutes), both in the private and public spheres. We work with official data from the Secretariat of University Policies (SPU) for the year 2020. This analysis of Bourdean coordinates allows us to recognize five groups, which function as clusters in the social space of Argentine University Institutions built on the basis of key variables such as the proportion of students by branch of knowledge, enrollment and its composition, age, sex, educational climate of origin, employment status of entrants, academic performance in the first year and the proportion of foreigners. A tension is evident between historically consolidated institutions and the offer for professional training with greater concentrated investment for a quick rate of return in the labor market, which is consolidated especially in new institutions. Private institutions show a higher graduation rate than public ones. Within public universities, differences are observed between traditional universities and those of more recent creation.