Disrupting Processes or Consolidating Trends? Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on Private Higher Education in Latin America

• In Event: The role of policy in education

Proposal

The COVID-19 pandemic generated different governmental and institutional reactions that, in most cases, resulted in the closure of educational institutions at all levels. By July 2020, approximately 110 countries had closed their schools, affecting more than one billion students worldwide (UNESCO, 2020). The physical closure of educational institutions, including higher education, has led to adopting of emergency remote education (ERE) models (Ali, 2020). Especially in higher education, many institutions had different virtual tools that helped them better transition than the rest of the educational systems. This paper directly responds to the 2023 CIES Sub-Theme I “Social Justice and Inclusion,” through the empirical study of the pandemic and its impact on private higher education (PHE), including the vulnerable student population attending them and the intensification of pre-existing trends. This proposal seeks to analyze the role of public policies and the institutional impacts of COVID-19 on private higher education in three Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, and Mexico), including relevant private-public comparisons.

While this pandemic has impacted all higher education institutions, their faculty, students, and staff, private and public institutions that depend on collecting tuition fees have been proportionally more affected than institutions supported by governmental funding. In Latin America, the private higher education sector enrolls 1 out of 2 students (Levy, 2018), so the impact of COVID on these institutions is consequential to understanding the present and future of higher education in the region.

The health emergency continues to evolve worldwide, so this analysis uses information and data collected by mid-2022. Some points, such as the impact that the pandemic can have on the enrollment of institutions, are put forth hypothetically since there are still no official data on them. This article takes up some propositions developed in greater detail in the first working paper on COVID-19 and private higher education published by the Private Higher Education Research Program (PROPHE). In that study (Levy et al., 2020), researchers from fourteen countries from all continents preliminarily analyzed the main effects of the pandemic on private higher education in their countries during the first half of 2020.

The presence of private higher education in Latin America varies drastically by country. Some countries enroll a large majority of their students in the private sector (e.g., Brazil and Chile), while others have expanded their systems through public institutions (e.g., Argentina and Mexico). In some countries, public higher education is tuition-free (e.g., Argentina and Brazil); in others, public institutions also charge tuition (e.g., Colombia). A common feature in all countries, although to a lesser extent lately in Chile, private institutions heavily rely on tuition fees to remain in business. So, to a large extent, private institutions may face challenges due to the economic impact of COVID-19 on jobs and employment.

This study utilizes qualitative (archival) and descriptive quantitative data to explore the role of public policy and the impact of the pandemic on PHE institutions in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. The analysis relies on conceptual frameworks from previous studies on PHE and contrasts a set of propositions to contrast hypotheses.

Preliminary analysis shows that COVID-19 has impacted private institutions differently and that each of these countries promoted different policies toward PHE (Salto, 2021). For example, in Argentina and Mexico, all PHE institutions rely on student tuition fees. In Chile, many non-university institutions still rely on tuition fees. Governmental policy in Argentina sought to alleviate the financial burden of the private sector -beyond higher education- and some private universities used a relief plan to cushion the impact of the pandemic. Preliminary evidence shows that PHE institutions tend to be more flexible, and most of their faculty and staff are hired on course, semester, or annual contracts. PHE institutions’ flexibility also includes a capacity to adapt their face-to-face instruction to online education. In contrast, public HEIs, for example, in Argentina and Mexico, struggled to switch online due to the lack of resources and resistance from faculty and staff. To sum up, PHE institutions have been impacted differently, some taking a more significant hit (demand absorbing) than others (semi-elite or elite universities).

Author

• Dante J Salto, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee