The tension of elite vs. massified higher education systems: how prospective students perceive public and private universities in Kenya

This article examines how recent changes, leading to a diversified supply in Kenya's university education system, is reflected in prospective students' aspirations, perceptions and preferences to undertake university education. The results, based on a combination of a convenience and snowball sampling of settings, within which random samples of final year high school students were selected, reveal that aspiration to undertake university education is high among all social groups, and that state universities are preferred by a majority of the students in spite of the rapid growth in the number of private universities of acceptable quality. By examining the aspirations of students and college choice, the paper engages the debates around elite vs . massified higher education in Kenya's context.