Research as a New Challenge for the Latin American Private University

Abstract

This chapter presents a global overview of how private higher education has expanded and evolved toward research productivity over the past 30 years in Latin America. Its exponential growth in the early stages can beunderstood through a multifactorial combination of variables such as the promotion of neoliberal policies, as a response to the increasing demand for access in a context of shrinking national budgets for education in theregion (Gaffikin and Perry 2009; Rama 2012a,b). That expansion of private universities initially focused on the training of professionals in traditional disciplines, which did not require high investment but had high demand (Gascón and Cepeda 2007). However, as private universities multiplied and, more importantly, enlarged, they evolved by adding new functions.Over the years, and through the stages described in this chapter, it has been possible to see that new policies created by different actors have addressed quality as a dominant concern about higher education in Latin America. This can be observed in the interaction of government regulations and the increasing influence of international organizations that have promoted, in addition to training, the creation of new knowledge as a central function of higher education in the region. Knowledge generation became a new mission for many institutions that have been carrying on education with almost no research productivity (Gregorutti et al. 2014).