The first-year university students in public national universities in Southern Patagonia. Records for decision making

Abstract

Although in recent decades there has been an increase in access to university studies, strong disparities are still evident in the trajectories of students depending on social origin. In this work we focus on the characteristics of first-year university students of national public universities from a perspective that is based on studies of educational fragmentation and segregation. We  aim is to describe social profiles of these first-year university students, the existence of common and unique characteristics within the universities of Southern Patagonia, as well as the differentials with the national averages. We work with a data source from administrative records: the 2022 University Statistics Yearbook, compiled by the Departamento de Información Universitaria of the Secretaría de Política Universitarias. In a first approach to this universe we intend to contribute to the knowledge of the characteristics that the processes of socio-educational inequality assume among university students in this región, which is a relevant input for the identification of critical nodes and priorities for the design of public policies that tend to reduce the reproduction of social inequalities.