How free tuition became a policy in Chile: the importance of policy actors and their beliefs

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been a revival of free tuition policies around the world. Understanding the current revival of these policies is particularly important as it positions higher education as a social right or public good challenging the predominant discourse that situates higher education as a private good. Chile, a country often characterized as a neoliberal laboratory, implemented a free-tuition policy in 2016 and offers a case study to understand the policy formation and the political dynamics behind it. Based on the advocacy coalition framework and using discourse network analysis and in-depth interviews, this paper focuses on identifying the main actors involved in the policy discussion, their beliefs about free college in Chile, and how they interact during the policy development. Findings show that the Chilean free tuition policy was the result of the joint actions of actors who shared similar beliefs and formed coalitions to try to influence the policy design. Findings also highlight the formation of two opposite coalitions that were able to introduce their beliefs into the policy design at political and technical levels. Implications for policymakers and researchers are discussed.