Higher education was precariously installed in Brazil in colonial times, and during that period it led a difficult life. From the early nineteenth century on several institutions were founded and developed in different parts of the country. Those institutions were kept independent from one another without forming full universities until the beginning of the twentieth century, in a peculiar historical process that sets the country apart in this respect. This article examines this unique development and searches the past for the earliest origins of the nation's present university network.
Higher education in Brazil; universities in Brazil; origins of the universities
