Universities,public policy and economic development in Latin America: the cases of Mexico and Venezuela

Since the establishment of national university systems in Mexico and Venezuela, three principal demands have dominated the formulation of university policy: the ideological demand imposed by government rhetoric and national aspirations (a demand reflected in federal expenditure), the demand of the national economy for different areas and levels of professional expertise, and the broad-based political and social demand for upward mobility by way of university education. Tensions between these three demands in both Mexico and Venezuela have stemmed from the historically decreasing ability of Latin American economies to produce significant long-term social mobility into the middle classes. Although in the 1940s and 1950s the university systems played important roles in promoting social mobility, by the 1960s the number of professional jobs was much smaller than the number of university graduates. By the 1980s, the social role of the universities was severely limited by economic crisis brought on by a combination of dropping oil prices, debt, and government deficits. The major challenge currently facing Mexico and Venezuela in higher education policy is to restart economic growth to provide jobs for university graduates.