Keywords
higher education
socio-economic status
How to Cite
Abstract
The article presents the findings from the study of socio-economic status (SES) of students of several Polish higher education institutions that differ in prestige. The author tries to answer the following question: what determines individual choices of which tertiary school to study at? The question is particularly seminal in the context of Polish higher education system, which can be rightly perceived to be highly stratified in prestige and quality of schools and very diverse in terms of social composition of student body, the latter being, inter alia, the reflection of the higher education expansion processes. The literature on inequality of educational opportunity explicitly shows that students of higher education institutions of different prestige differ significantly in their social background. This hypothesis clearly holds in the light of data collected for this study. This allows one to make a second hypothesis: horizontal inequalities in access to Polish higher education are evident. They imply a situation, in which some school leavers enrol at higher education institutions of lower prestige for reasons other than their educational achievement (fulfilling admission criteria). The article not only proves the existence of horizontal inequalities, but also identifies the demand-side factors that bring them about and assesses their relative strength. The study is based on the survey which has been conducted in the second quarter of 2015 on the sample of Polish first and second year bachelor students in economic disciplines at both public and private tertiary schools in Poland.
Funding
Autor uzyskał środki finansowe na przygotowanie rozprawy doktorskiej z Narodowego Centrum Nauki w ramach finansowania stypendium doktorskiego na podstawie decyzji numer DEC-2015/16/T/HS4/00543.
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