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This paper reflects on achievements of the expansion policies in Latin American universities, focusing on their strengths and the grey areas that can limit their democratizing effects. From a theoretical viewpoint, outlines of the concept of democratization will be examined, acknowledging diverse meanings and approaches. This theoretical construction will be applied to analyze the cases of Argentina and Brazil. The working hypothesis poses the existence of a certain cut back in the democratizing scope of these policies, which implies that, although new social groups have access to a college education, this situation does not always translate into reducing social inequalities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]