In the last two decades the operationalization and dissemination of assessment procedures of institutions and courses of Brazilian higher education have gained great prominence. The state expanded the evaluative processes aiming mainly to regulate and control the system. Since then the media creates and publishes rankings for society of institutions and courses based primarily on undergraduate student performance in examinations. In this context, performing well in the rankings has become a synonym for quality for society and therefore competition among higher education institutions intensified even more. But are exam-based evaluative methods really adequate to evaluate institutions and courses? The performance of students in examinations enables a reliable assessment about the quality of undergraduate courses? This paper seeks to answer these questions, addressing first the concept of "cultural capital" of Bourdieu and resuming quantitative research on school effectiveness and determinants of student performance. Subsequently, it studies and analyzes data about the importance of background of the students on their performance in higher education. Finally, it ends by showing evidence that the background is more important than the effects of an undergraduate course on the performance of students in exams.
Higher education; Quality in education; School effectiveness