This paper analyzes the Brazilian higher education in the 1995-2002 period focusing mainly on the Federal Government's policies. After presenting the changes determined in the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (Brazilian Education Basic Tenets Law), in 1996, it lists and analyzes the measures taken during the Cardoso administration. They constituted a truly fragmented normalization of higher education and affected the access to undergraduate courses, the power of teachers in the university administration, the Conselho Nacional de Educação (Brazilian Education Council), assessment and the very institutional format. Finally, a balance of these eight years reveals both the intensification of privatization and a shift of the border between public and private sector.
Higher education; University; Privatization; Brazilian Education
