Institutional Differentiation and the

This paper addresses the topic of institutional differentiation, or dimensions of institutional variation, and how this differentiation impacts enrollment capacity, or the ability of a national system taken as a whole to accommodate a large anticipated expansion of enrollment. The paper specifically addresses the topic in reference to Brazil in the late 1990s. It draws on theory and experience from the international comparative study of higher education from the perspectives of economics, finance, governance, and public policy. In addressing higher education in Brazil, this paper has been informed by secondary source material in English, much of it provided by the World Bank, but has not been informed by primary source materials or by in-country experience.

Universities and other institutions of higher education, in Brazil as elsewhere, differ in several important ways. From the perspective of public policy attempting to accommodate enrollment pressures, the most important is differentiation in institutional mission and the several institutional variables that follow from, or are a function of, institutional mission. By "mission" is meant the larger purpose of the institutional, which in turn drives the programs, the kinds of students attracted, the kinds of faculty appointed and the expectations upon them, and the way that the institution is assessed (or would be assessed if assessment were taking place).

Differentiation of mission: An institution's mission can be aspirational, purported or actual: that is, what the institution is trying to be; what the faculty, students, and leaders wish it to be thought of; and what it most nearly is in fact and to the unbiased observer. The mission of an institution of higher education may be best thought of on a continuum ranging from a primary orientation to scholarship and advanced training associated with the classical research university, to an orientation to accessibility, vocational training, and the short cycle programs associated with what are sometimes referred to as "non-university" institutions. The term "binary line" is used to describe national systems where all institutions of higher education are formally classified as either "university" or "non-university" - the latter designation, for example, including the German Fachhochschulen, the French instituts universitaires de technologie (IUTs), the Dutch HBO, most of the Japanese private institutions, and in Brazil, those public and private institutions without official "university" designation.

However, that nomenclature is becoming out of date--and almost dysfunctional--for several reasons. First, as stated above, institutions are more accurately portrayed along a continuum, or even more accurately, along a series of continua, describing various institutional characteristics or dimensions. Most institutions in most countries lie somewhere between the extremes of the classical, research-oriented, Humboldtian university on the one end, and the exclusively short-cycle, teaching- and vocationally-oriented college or institute on the other as shown in Figure 1. In the UK, for example, the former polytechnics, once officially "non-university," are now classified as "universities," but are required to compete for and earn the resources that may actually lead them to the scholarly distinction associated with those institutions that have long born that designation. In the US, the community colleges are clearly "non-university" except that most of the coursework is transferable to a university first degree (the baccalaureate), and many very able students begin at these colleges for reasons of cost and convenience, transferring to universities after completing the two-year degree. The US public comprehensive institutions, (called either "colleges" or "universities") as well as most of the baccalaureate (mainly private) colleges also resemble the European non-universities in the absence of advanced degrees and the largely teaching orientation of the faculty. However, some of the private baccalaureate colleges enroll decidedly "elite" student bodies, most of whom go on the obtain advanced degrees in universities, as well as faculty who publish extensively. Similarly, many of the comprehensive colleges give masters degrees, some even grant doctorates (largely professional doctorates in education), and most of the faculty conduct research and publish. To further complicate the distinction between "university" and "non-university" in the US, most universities, both public and private, give substantial emphasis to teaching (even at "remedial" levels), community service, applied scholarship, and even to short-cycle training.

"Mission" is also a proxy for a number of important related variables on which institutions of higher education typically vary, most frequently, as with "mission" itself, along continua. These dimensions include:

The dominant knowledge orientation.

The requisite academic preparedness and interest expected of students.

The requisite academic and scholarly standards expected of the faculty,

The expected and rewarded faculty orientation.

The degree of prestige accorded the institution, the faculty, and the graduates.

The dominant degree programs.

The duration of studies and the full- or part-time commitment of the students,

The dominant form of internal governance.

The typical per-student costs of instruction.

These variables and their associated continua are summarized in Figure 1. A number of important related dimensions of institutional variation track closely with mission and with each other. For example, prestige is associated with scholarly reputation, which is gained through research and the training of advanced students, who are engaged in longer-term study, (usually) in more theoretical disciplines. A research orientation, although relevant mainly to advanced doctoral training in the arts and science disciplines, is associated with high entry standards for undergraduate or first degree students who will likely have little association with the prestigious professors, but will reap the rewards of a high status degree largely because of these high entry standards and the all-important signal to the outside world of their requisite intelligence, academic preparedness, ambition, and probable social background, all of presumed value to employers, future friends, and mates.

Figure 1

University and Non University:

The Continua of Institutional Mission Variation

Programs of study, or degrees, vary by discipline or occupational field, by level of study (first, second, or advanced degree), and by the dominant learning goals (whether heavily theoretical or more applied). These track closely with the other dimensions of institutional variation associated with the "university-nonuniversity" distinction. For example, programs will vary by prestige, cost of delivery, and attractiveness to students. An institution seeking to raise its prestige and to be perceived as more "scholarly" is likely to emphasize the traditional arts and science disciplines and the classical professions of law and medicine. An institution not likely ever to attain genuine university status might be more cost conscious and seek fields of study that can be taught (and presumably learned) in large lecture formats, with little or no specialized equipment, and with inexpensive adjunct professors. Finally, an institution that must work to maintain enrollment -generally meaning one that is minimally selective and that attracts students on the basis of location, service, and program rather than prestige - will present the programs in greatest student demand (although generally also mindful of costs), regardless of future employment prospects or the social need for more practitioners.

Tracking closely with differentiations in program, prestige, and primary orientation of the faculty is the dimension of "student orientation," or "institutional market niche." Institutions that choose, or for some reason are required, to locate on, the "non-university" end of the institutional mission continuum will generally appeal more to the student who is somewhat less academically and/or socially ambitious. He or she might be less academically able, perhaps as a result of early schooling, or of the academically unsupportive influence of peers or of family. But he or she might also simply be less drawn to theoretical subjects, or more drawn to vocations that require applied training in which university training is of little (or negative) value. Or--and this is closely tied to public policy--the student's institutional preference may be a function of both academic preparedness and family financial resources: being not quite strong enough academically to be admitted to the prestigious free universities, but not financially able to afford the best alternatives. The barrier may be the tuition of private or the high living costs (from the need to live away from home) of the alternative public institution. So, he or she is relegated to the institution closest to home--which may just happen to be a college or institute with less prestige and less value in the job market.

Institutions of higher education are neither neutral nor stable with regard to where on this continuum their mission is positioned. For reasons that are partly natural (a human inclination toward prestige), partly historical/cultural (the historic origins of the classical universities), and in part a function of policy (governmental rewards, whether intended or not, that favor the classical research model relative to all others), there is an almost ineluctable gravitation toward the scholarly-research end of the mission continuum. Institutions want to be thought of as "universities," frequently as more scholarly and well regarded than they really are. And if they are not presently particularly scholarly, it is thought proper to aspire to become more so, whether this is to be accomplished by acquiring permission to offer more advanced and prestigious programs, or by attracting a more academically prepared student body, or inducing more scholarly behavior from the faculty, or attempting to change the institution's designation politically, by governmental edict.

The Brazilian University, like the French university on which it was largely modeled, has traditionally been more of a teaching institution than a center of scholarship. Although reforms in the1960s attempted to raise the scholarly qualifications of the faculty and the scholarly output of the universities, most university faculty are still without terminal degrees, and the research productivity of most universities (except for a few universities that do international-quality research, mainly in Sao Paulo and Rio) is low. Describing Brazilian higher education the 1980's, Verhine in1992 wrote of "the generally low qualifications of teaching personnel, the lack of effective faculty evaluation, the virtual impossibility of employee firing, the absence of incentives for research an publishing, and the need for many in the [professorate] to hold down additional employments to meet income expectations have led to a major internal crisis."

Any attempt to turn institutions that consider themselves "universities" formally into anything less (which is how the imposition of a "non-university" designation would be seen) would be met with great resistance and would probably fail. However, as the American experience has shown for years, and the British experience has shown since the abolition of the binary line that once separated their universities from the polytechnics, a very substantial and useful differentiation can co-exist within the formal "university" designation. Care is taken to resist academic drift toward the faculty roles and rewards associated only with the research university. With most Brazilian universities already operating in fact as primarily teaching institutions, there would seem to be little to be gained by "taking on" the designation of "university." Instead, public policy ought to concentrate on freeing the public institutions from the rigidity of the federally imposed teaching expectations and other "terms and conditions" for both faculty and staff, and to fund program growth principally (but not exclusively) on the practical, shorter-cycle end of the mission continuum.

The last point suggests another variation on the theme of differentiation. Institutions of higher education, especially if they are of substantial size, and especially if they are predominantly research-oriented, can differentiate within. That is, the non-university function can be added to, or incorporated within, an existing research university rather than be started from scratch as a separate institution. An example of institutions that incorporate both the "university" and the "non-university" functions are those French universities that incorporate all of the traditional university mission along with the non-university Instituts Universitaires de Technologie (IUT). However, although these two institutions share some space and formal governing authority, they are less successful sharing faculty and courses. The IUTs have acquired some status not generally associated with non-university institutions by virtue of having entry standards beyond the mere possession of the secondary academic leaving certificate, or Baccalaureate. In a kind of role reversal, the French university is the more nearly open admissions institution (being forced to accept all students with the Bac), while some of the IUTs have been able to effect a kind of selectivity. In fact, the French have adopted quite another model to contend with students who are less motivated for the traditional university first degree. This is a two-year degree, the DEUG, that allows such students exit gracefully--although few seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity. Another attempt at combining both ends of the mission continuum in a single institution is the German Gesamthochschule, which was devised to combine the classical German university with the some of the programs and orientations of the newer Fachhochschulen. While the idea seems to be working where it has been adopted, the model is not spreading to the other states.

The problem with combining broad mission variation in a single institution is the difficulty of combining in fruitful partnership elements with such disparate levels of prestige and assumed rewards--to faculty and student alike. Thus, the more practical, teaching-oriented, non-university elements may either remain on the periphery, gaining little from the consolidation, and their faculty chaffing unhappily under their larger teaching loads. Or, they may try to emulate the "university" faculty and programs, losing the reasons for creating the practical, teaching-oriented programs in the first place. However, in the large number of Brazilian Universities that are already in the middle space of the mission continuum, it might be possible to expand the more practical, shorter-cycle programs by tying faculty rewards to such programs or to such non-university proxy indicators as shorted time to graduation, teaching performance, or enrollment of students carrying need-based aid.

Institutions of higher education may also be differentiated according to several dimensions of reliance on, or relationship to, government. These several continua are associated with "publicness" or "privateness." They are only loosely related to mission. Three principal dimensions of variation are:

Ownership: ranging from the clearly public, to the private non-profit, to the private for-profit or proprietary (or in the case of Brazil, the "entrepreneurial" institution that is nominally non-profit but that exists for the clear purpose of profit through ways other than the payment of dividends).

Control by government: ranging from the high degree of control associated with a governmental agency to the relative freedom to operate associated with a private enterprise. The high control, or government agency, end of the continuum might include direct controls over all institutional expenditures and contracts, and perhaps even the authority of the government head to directly appoint and remove top-level administrators, as in a ministry or agency. In the middle of the continuum might be control by a publicly-appointed board, or buffer agency, like a university grants commission or an appointed or elected governing board, subject ultimately to control by direct election or by the appointing authority of an elected official--but not quickly or (in theory) too overtly. At the "private" end would be an entity quite removed from the authority of the government--even though the institution might be operating under a public charter, dependent on public revenues, and in facilities owned by the state.

Level or Branch of government control: The principal governmental control can be federal, state (or provincial), or municipal--or possibly shared among these levels according to the prevailing national tenants of federalism. In the U.S. and Canada, for example, the federal government has no authority over the operation of any institutions of higher education (except for the very few that are federally owned, such as the military service academies). The federal government has the regulatory authority it has over any organization or entity, but none by virtue of the entity being an institution of higher education. Brazilian federalism imparts considerably less sovereignty to the constituent states than the U.S. Constitution to the American states. The Brazilian federal government has "its own" institutions (35 of which are designated as "universities") and it permits the states and municipalities, with federal permission, to form, fund, and control more than 150additional public institutions of higher education.

Multi-level jurisdictions present some problems, at least in theory. When there are both federal and state or provincial institutions of higher education, and where all sovereignty lies clearly at the federal or central level, it is tempting for the federal government to choose the smaller, high-prestige end of the institutional mission continuum, reinforcing or even exacerbating the disparities in prestige and funding, to the relative detriment of those institutions serving the majority of students, and arguably even the more important role in the economy. Also, where financial responsibility is shared between two level of government, each level has an incentive to be the "least and the last." Because the federal level of government is usually the strongest, it will attempt to push financial responsibility down to the states or regions, but to retain the ability to "top up" funding where it chooses. Both levels can evade responsibility (especially funding responsibility), claiming that any deficiency is due to the failure of the other level.

Reliance on governmental revenue: Institutions in all countries vary considerably in their reliance on governmental or public revenue, as opposed to non-governmental revenue. The principal sources of non-governmental revenue for institutions of higher education are:

• students and parents-through tuition, fees, and full-cost recovery on institutionally-provided room and board;
• sales of faculty and other institutional services-through sponsored research contracts or the provision of specialized training to individuals, firms, or government agencies; and
• philanthropists -through individual, business, and foundation donations.

These variations are summarized in Figure 2. Universities and other institutions of higher education can be publicly owned-which would be the most unequivocal determination of "public" status--and yet quite reliant on non-governmental revenue through the charging of high tuition and full cost-recovery on institutionally-provided room and board. They also could be given substantial managerial autonomy, perhaps through a publicly appointed "buffer" governing board. Conversely, institutions of higher education can be unequivocally privately owned, yet subject to heavy governmental regulations--e.g., on the charging of tuition or the compensation of faculty and staff. They may also be highly dependent on governmental revenue, either through direct institutional operating grants, or through the device of tuition grants or vouchers able to channel public financial assistance through the students. In the first example above, the university would be nominally public, yet substantially private. In the last example, the institution maybe legally private, yet would be virtually indistinguishable from a public university.

Brazil's public universities are heavily governmentally controlled--from the appointment of rectors to the compensation and terms of employment for the faculty and staff. Brazil's large private higher education sector, ranging from a few institutions clearly at the "research university" end of the mission continuum, to the majority near the "non-university" end, are subject to considerable governmental control. The Federal Council of Education (CFE) controls initial approval to operate as a university or college, as well as the courses of study or programs that can be offered, to the maximum tuition that can be charged. Through the1960s, lessening in the 1970s, and ending in the early 1980s, most of Brazil's private universities also received substantial public operating subsidies, further reducing the significance of their "privateers." By the 1990s, however, this operating support had been mainly eliminated, making the private institutions quite tuition dependent--no longer depending on public revenue, but still subject to various public controls, including on tuition.

Drawing on this treatment of institutional differentiation generally, Brazilian institutions of higher education can be differentiated along the two principal axes of ownership and institutional type:

1. Ownership, by:

• public--further differentiated by:
• federal,
• state (with the two principal Sao Paulo universities in a virtual class by themselves),
• municipal, and
• private-further differentiated by:
• religious (mainly Roman Catholic),
• secular, entrepreneurial (technically non-profit, but existing for purpose of profit), and
• proprietary (recently legalized, but there are as yet few so classified as it is easy to make money through the non-profit "entrepreneurial "loophole," with non-profit tax advantages).

1. Institutional type, or classification, by:

• Universities-further (loosely) differentiated by:
• universities with doctoral training and substantial faculty scholarship, and
• teaching universities, and
• non-universities-further differentiated by:
• Single faculty institutions, and
• Multiple (federations of) faculties.

Information from the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) supplied to the World Bank provided information on sector differentiation by type (universities, non- university multiple faculty, and non-university single faculty) and ownership (federal, state, municipal, or private) is shown for 1996 in Table 1. There were 922 institutions, of which 57 were federal, 74 state, 80 municipal, and 711 private. Total enrollment in the public sector was 735,427 or 39 percent of the total, of which the Federal universities accounted for 20 percent. The state universities, mainly in Sao Paulo, had 11 percent of the total enrollment. Private enrollment accounted for 1,868,529, or 61percent of the total, of which about one-half were enrolled in universities.

Brazil is facing considerable potential enrollment expansion at the end of the 1990s. Enrollments nearly doubled between 1980 and1996, from 652,00 to 1,209,000. Enrollment growth has been somewhat flat in the 1990s, but rapid expansion of secondary school enrollments and the relatively low percentage currently going on to higher education, particularly in the North, suggest very considerable enrollment growth potential. The overriding policy question of this paper is the degree to which this potential expansion can or should be met with explicit policy attention to institutional differentiation. Specifically, what kinds of institutions should be built, or expanded, or allowed to be privately developed to accommodate the needed and anticipated expansion?

The agenda of enrollment expansion is part of, and confounded by, four quite different, although related, change agendas identified below as reform, modernization, growth, and democratization.

1. The Reform Agenda. Quite apart from growth, or from changing external factors (such as increasing population or changing economy) to which an institution might or might not want to accommodate, and apart from considerations of the future, there will generally be in any country an underlying higher educational reform agenda. This agenda asks what is currently perceived (usually by persons of power) to be wrong with the universities and other institutions of higher education, and how should they change, or reform? Most countries have a conventional and long-standing reform agenda that is relevant to, but not directly concerned with, accommodating future enrollment pressures. Within this conventional (and relatively timeless) reform agenda, for example, are usually found such long desired changes as: more attention to the craft of teaching and to first degree or undergraduate students, better management and more appropriate allocation of resources, and addressing the occasional (or perhaps more-than-occasional)"unproductive" faculty member. A successful reform agenda can help accommodate enrollment growth to the degree to which it uses higher educational resources more effectively or improves the quality of teaching and learning. The conventional reform agenda usually incorporates greater differentiation-partly in opposition to the forces of "academic drift" and "institutional homogenization," mentioned above, that are viewed as part of the problems giving rise to the reform agenda in the first place. But the existing reform agenda has a life of its own and is not primarily a response to a perceived need to expand enrollment.

2. The Modernization Agenda. The modernization agenda applies to all institutions, and is similar in all countries, especially as it pertains to research universities and to science, both of which are so universalistic and globally interconnected. The base of knowledge and the methods for its expansion change, especially in science, but also in other fields, and faculty, curricula, and facilities must accommodate, or modernize. Thus, Brazilian higher education would be facing needed changes and new resource demands even if the reforms of yesterday had all been successfully adopted, and even if there were no pressures for expansion of enrollments or new institutions. Some of these modernizations would likely call for further institutional differentiation, although this differentiation might be accommodated more by differentiation within, rather than differentiation between, institutions.

3. The Growth Agenda. As populations grow, so should the numbers who need, or could be expected to demand, higher education of some sort-quite apart from any expansion in the percentage of the school-age cohort completing academic secondary school, or the percentage of those that wish to enter a postsecondary institution. Brazil has a large, fast-growing, young population. The World Bank estimated in 1993 that the prevailing annual secondary growth rate was 3.4 percent. Thus, if the current range and capacities of institutional types described above is assumed to be "right" for the present, each kind of institution would have to increase its capacity--or new ones be built--at about the same percentage growth rate as that of the 18-25 year-old age cohort. What is significant about the pure growth agenda is that it presumes no differential growth rates, or redistribution of enrollments among the different parts of Brazil's higher education system. Research universities, non-universities, and institutions "in between" could be expected to feel the same marginal growth pressures and to expand or to be expanded at about the same rate.

4. The Democratization Agenda. The democratization agenda assumes a need to expand the percentage of the age cohort attending higher education-as well as accommodating older persons who did not have the ability or the inclination to go on to some form of higher education at the time they left compulsory schooling. The significance of higher educational democratization is that is magnifies the effect of sheer population growth. If a country is growing in population and is currently educating a relatively small proportion of the traditional age cohort (and thus can also be assumed to have a large latent non-traditional student demand) which needs to be sharply expanded, the potential total enrollment expansion can be very large indeed. The World Bank estimated in 1993 that reforms in secondary schooling could raise the then-prevailing secondary school enrollment growth rate from 3,4percent to 6.6 percent. By this reasoning, the Brazil's potential higher education enrollment growth rate must be considerable. Some "democratization-accelerated" higher education growth is also supported by comparative higher education participation rates. Total higher educational enrollment in Brazil is estimated at approximately 11 percent of the 18-24 year old age cohort-compared to 35 percent in Argentina and nearly 50 percent in France. Not only is this participation rate somewhat low for Brazil's overall level of economic development and modernization, but the country-wide number masks a very great within-country disparity, with participation rates in the South and around Sao Paulo relatively high, but rates in the North and Northeast thought to be extremely low. The "democratization" perspective also suggests that the average student on the margin of this enrollment expansion-by definition, a student who in the past would not have been able or interested (for whatever reason) in higher education-is likely to need or demand a different kind of higher educational experience, and thus, perhaps, a different kind of higher educational institution.

This analysis suggests that the marginal enrollment expansion is likely to need expanded higher education capacity in all types and sectors, but especially in institutions closer to the non-university end of the mission continuum. Public policy should therefore make special efforts to expand capacity there-and to resist the natural "drift" of the more applied and shorter cycle programs in the direction of research university norms. The conventional advice of inter-national higher education agencies, international development banks, and most scholars and consultants in the business of offering advice and analysis to national education ministries is exactly that: urging "institutional diversification"--meaning relative expansion toward the "non-university," shorter cycle, more vocationally-oriented end of the mission continuum. There are two reasons underlying this advice, and it would be well to identify them and examine their underlying assumptions.

The first basis for recommending a relatively greater expansion at the "non-university" end of the mission continuum is that the new or marginal student is thought to be less academically prepared and less academically interested. Admittedly, there is a social class basis to this assumption. Part of the attraction of the classical university is generally assumed to be a fondness for literature and the arts, an inclination (or sufficient leisure time) for abstraction and "knowledge consumption," and the kind of academic preparation and ambition that are associated with upper-middle and upper class families. It is further assumed (well supported by data on higher educational participation by family income and/or social class) that most young people from these income classes who are academically able and inclined are already going on to a university. Furthermore, it is also assumed that most job growth will require not necessarily a university first or second degree, but a shorter degree-bachelors, or even shorter, and in some kind of applied or technological field. (At least, the jobs are assumed to be not in the classical art and sciences or law, as were assumed in the past to be appropriate for entry into the civil service.) It follows from these observations and assumptions that public policy to increase higher educational enrollment capacity should at least "tilt" toward the non-university end of the mission continuum.

The second factor in favor of this tilt is the assumption that costs are less at non-university colleges than at classical or strictly research universities. The basis for this assumption (aside from observed fact) is that faculty at research universities teach lighter loads, are supported by more equipment (including libraries, laboratories, and computing facilities), and frequently have higher salaries (or are more likely to be full time) than their counterparts at the polytechnics, colleges, and other non-university institutions. Unit (i.e., per-student) expenditure data bear this out. In addition, because the students at the short-degree end of the continuum take fewer classes and move out faster, they cost less per degree. Thus, as higher educational policy is driven by considerations of cost, and of the need especially to stretch public revenues farther, the institutions toward the "non-university" end of the mission continuum are all the more attractive.

However, there are caveats to the conclusion that the non-university is necessarily more cost-effective. In the first place, at least some of the greater per-student cost associated with the classical university is a function of three factors having little to do with actual higher educational production functions:

tradition: the university budgets have always been greater, so it is assumed that whatever university faculty do is necessarily more costly;

professorial preference: understandably for lighter loads and abundant unscheduled time; and

student preference: for taking one's unhurried time toward the degree.

But these factors are not to be confused with an actual production function demonstrating that it must cost more to educate a university student. Universities that are genuinely (and successfully) research-oriented, especially those that are scientific, biomedical, or technological are indeed fundamentally more expensive (at least the successful ones). But it has little to do with what it cost actually to educate the students, especially at the level of the first degree. Rather, the faculty must be provided light teaching loads, competitive compensation, and costly equipment to produce the research. But as already noted, many of the Brazilian institutions that are called "universities" are actually in the middle of the "mission continuum" and are essentially teaching institutions. Their admittedly higher per-student costs are arguably a function of light teaching loads, very often unmatched by commensurately high scholarly production, or of excessive staffing and other manifestations of inefficient management. Similarly, the low per-student costs associated with some of the institutions at the short cycle, "non-university," end of the mission continuum are likely a function of shoddy facilities, overworked and/or under compensated faculty (many of whom are part-time or paid by the class or the hour), and littler or no attention to the student outside of the classroom.

To assume that all universities need to be more costly than colleges, polytechnics, or other non-university institutions may be to perpetuate an existing pattern of resource allocation and faculty norms that should be changed. Perhaps some of the faculty teaching at the colleges and other "non-universities" would be more effective (particularly from the perspective of student learning) if more of them were full-time, better compensated, and had more opportunities for scholarly work. Similarly, there are some universities that are almost certainly not as genuinely costly per student as their non-university counterparts because of the huge university classes and minimal individualized attention to the student, although the prevailing cost-accounting conventions, attributing all costs to teaching, will not reveal this. In the case of Brazil, where many of the "demand-absorbing" institutions are nominally "universities," it would be a policy mistake to be overly influenced in the decision about which kinds of institutions to favor by the current patterns of per-student cost estimates. However, in spite of these caveats the conventional advice-to tilt the accommodation of enrollment expansion toward the expansion of capacity in institutions from the middle to the non-university end of the mission continuum--almost certainly holds in the Brazilian case. But the reason is more for the greater curricular appropriateness that for any presumed fundamental cost effectiveness.

It is not apparent from the secondary source materials available for this analysis that Brazil needs any dramatic or wrenching restructuring of existing institutions of higher education for the purpose of accommodating enrollment expansion. The universities and other institutions of higher education in Brazil seem to need reform, as in virtually any country. But the purpose of accommodating enrollment expansion is not necessarily any more compelling that the goal of enhancing efficiency or quality. And while this analysis has emphasized, for the accommodation of enrollment expansion, what has been called the "non-university end of the mission continuum," it is arguably as important for Brazil--as large and as economically and culturally significant as it is-to reform and enhance its research and scholarly capabilities, as well.

With a special sensitivity to the enrollment pressures presented by both growth and democratization, and with a special awareness of the importance of institutional diversification or differentiation, the following recommendations and observations are offered.

1. There are probably enough (if not too many) federal institutions. The federal government of Brazil clearly has an important role in higher and postsecondary education. But that role is almost certainly not primarily the ownership and management of federal institutions. Rather, the more effective federal roles in higher and postsecondary education may be:

1. The provision of need-based financial aid portable to institutions of any type in any state. Given the difficulties of collecting loan repayments under the best of circumstances, if Brazil is to rely substantially on loans (as opposed to grants or low tuition for all), then the general rules and the financial responsibility should be federal.
2. Special assistance to the more isolated and impoverished regions, principally in the North and Northeast. This would be accomplished more effectively through additional student assistance, special program grants, and special capital grants than through additional federally owned and managed institutions.
3. The determination of general priorities for, and the funding of, most basic research.
4. Accreditation: from initial permission to open, through permission to offer certain degrees and programs, to periodic quality assessments (with the implied authority to close insufficient programs and institutions).

2. It is appropriate for each federal institution to feature scholarship and advanced training, although this scholarship and training does not have to be comprehensive, nor extend to all faculty or all programs, nor to preclude "scholarship" of a very applied nature. The most persistent criticism against US universities is the assumption (perhaps only implicit, but widely acknowledged) that all faculty of all universities should be engaged in research (the more theoretical the better) for their entire careers. It is likely that the same criticism is being made in Brazil. Thus, no federal university in Brazil would have to cease being a "university." But many should be pressured to become more scholarly, perhaps by the need to compete for the funding that allows faculty to have a reduced teaching load and the resources for research. Furthermore, the kind of advanced training programs to be approved and the research to be funded would be that which is appropriate to social, cultural, and economic needs of the region-and complementary to the research and advanced training provided by the (few) genuinely scholarly private universities, as well as by the state universities in Sao Paulo.

3. The above recommendation depend on adequate funding of federal research foundations-in effect, removing federal dollars from the requirement to maintain the higher operating support of a research university, and requiring the universities and the faculty to compete for the dollars and the prestige that come with them. This, in turn, depends on success in the familiar reform agenda calling for greater institutional management authority over the appointment, promotion, compensation, and teaching assignments for faculty.

4. The state universities ought to combine a mission of effective teaching with attention to the special research and training needs of the region. The excellent research universities of Sao Paulo aside, most of these institutions need to be held to appropriate scholarly standards-but not allowed to minimize their teaching responsibilities, nor necessarily be held to the same kind of "research-and-publication" output expected in the top research universities in Brazil and the world.

5. Brazil's reliance on a large private sector especially for the accommodation of enrollments (not unlike other Latin American and many Asian countries) has served the country well and should be maintained and strengthened. Some familiar recommendations:

1. Strengthen a portable need-based grant system, supplemented by a generally available, minimally subsidized, national loan program.
2. Make private universities eligible for the expanded grant programs, mentioned in 1.a, above.
3. Provide low interest, guaranteed loans for capital improvements and expansion.

6. Accommodate overtly proprietary institutions; tighten up on the loopholes and other violations of the non-profit laws (the "entrepreneurial institutions").

1. Strengthen the accreditation system. Brazil will probably rely on ministerial accreditation, but can still utilize largely volunteer staff and faculty from peer institutions to provide better and less expensive staff for the accreditation site visits.

These measures will preserve and improve the efficiency of what is already a substantially differentiated system of institutional missions, programs, and forms of governance. The sharpened, strengthened differentiation will better accommodate the inevitable expansion of higher education enrolments in Brazil.

11/3/98