Who Gets In? Inequality in Access to Elite Higher Education

Abstract

This study provides the first national-level quantitative evidence on the relationship between secondary school type and admission to Kazakhstan’s elite postsecondary institution, Nazarbayev University (NU). Using linked administrative data covering 99.6% of all secondary school graduates between 2021 and 2023 (N = 499,150), we examine how school type structures access to NU while accounting for academic achievement, demographic characteristics, family socioeconomic background, geographic region, and school-level resources. Results indicate a pronounced concentration of NU enrollment among graduates of elite, exam-based secondary schools. Although these schools educate fewer than 5% of students nationwide, they account for more than 80% of NU enrollees. Three public elite school networks alone produce 71% of admitted students while representing just 2.4% of the national graduate cohort. Logistic regression estimates further show that, net of controls, attending an elite secondary school is associated with increases of 2–4 percentage points in the probability of NU enrollment relative to regular urban schools. In contrast, graduates of rural and multigrade schools face significantly lower probabilities of admission, even after accounting for academic performance and socioeconomic indicators. These findings suggest that formally merit-based admissions disproportionately reward students from selective schools that cultivate the academic, linguistic, and cultural resources aligned with NU’s selection criteria. As a result, the admissions framework may inadvertently reproduce cumulative educational advantage. The results highlight how elite educational pipelines intensify vertical stratification within Kazakhstan’s expanding higher education system and underscore the need for earlier, targeted policy interventions to reduce preparatory and informational inequalities.