The Decay of the Human Capital Theory in Latin American Higher Education Systems

Abstract

This article is the result of the analysis of the various theoretical visions that have been developed from the world of economics and have consolidated and permeated the future of educational systems with the impact on people and the development of countries, emphasizing how political and social decisions have been oriented from this economic perspective of profitability and productivity, rather than from a social perspective. Starting from a chronological review and analysis from the conventional neoclassical paradigms to the new perspectives arising from the economics of education, the reflection is focused on phenomena such as supply and demand, the efficiency of educational systems, and how these are similar to any other production process. As a conclusion, it is established that the application of economic visions presents inconsistency between the ontology that the mathematical models implicitly presuppose and the ontology that effectively characterizes social reality. Thus, the formalization requirement implicit in the Human Capital Theory cuts out important aspects of social reality that are essential to understanding and explaining educational phenomena.