Abstract (Translated):
The main argument supporting the policy of public, gratuitous and universal university is the one of equalization of opportunities. Nevertheless, the debate usually omits two crucial issues: the sequential characteristic of the educative process, and the opportunity cost of its financing. This paper develops a theoretical model that acknowledges these factors, concluding that public university can be a sub-optimal redistributive policy. Moreover it presents an empirical analysis, based on probit-type regressions, which show that the probability of benefiting from public university increases significantly with the agents' income.