With just a small proportion of the population holding a college degree, the material and symbolic advantages of higher education are quite substantive in Brazil. In the last decade, social demand led to the expansion of public universities and the adoption of affirmative actions. Using data from four public universities in the state of Sao Paulo, the paper shows an increase in the numbers of students from lower-income and less educated families. Their relative inclusion, however, has reproduced the traditional social segmentation in Brazilian higher education, keeping access to prestigious majors more difficult to those with fewer resources.11 149167