This article seeks to explain analytically the present scenario of conflicting interests in Brazil regarding the structure and main objectives of university education at national level. The conflict arises between the industrial bourgeoisie represented by the National Confederation of Industry (known as CNI) on the one hand and, on the other, by the new bourgeoisie of the area of private educational services, represented by the National Forum for Free Initiative in Education. This analysis shows that the changes within higher education in Brazil are mainly determined by the interests of capital to transform this sector of education into a commodity. Nevertheless, the interests of these two fractions of the bourgeoisie, each with their specific characteristics, do not immediately converge. Thus, they tend to place their different demands before the State, and in particular before the Executive power, which has, since the end of 2004, been implementing an educational reform, that has been transformed into a proposed bill of law, sent to Congress in July of the present year.
higher education policy; bourgeois fractions; Brazil