Higher education market in Colombia

Summary:  View help for Summary In a scenario of significant growth in the supply and demand of higher education programmes in Colombia, this study proposes a modelling system based on data mining techniques to characterise this market after obtaining quality information about first- term students. The research uses a sample of 3548 programmes in Colombia, which represents 50\% of higher education students in the period between 2012-2014. It is concluded that the private higher education system reproduces social inequalities in the sense that it restricts by the way of costs, the access to the high-quality supply and that the best students are also received there. The modelling strategy has two advantages concerning related literature. On the one hand, formulating microeconomic framework to model the rational choice is not required, on the other hand, it creates an instrument that allows visualisation and locating of each microdata (academic programme) in a segmentation based on educational and socio-economic variables which this converts the result of the research into an academic portfolio management tool for higher education institutions.