**2. First crossroads: higher education in turbulent times**

Recent years have witnessed increased demonstrations of social discontent in different countries around the world. Even though it maintains the highest Human Development Index in Latin America and the Caribbean – and even though its development model has been praised for the success of its macroeconomic figures – Chile was no exception. In 2019, days of massive social protest were unleashed here and subsequently in Colombia, Peru and Argentina. These social movements were united by discontent among broad sectors of the population against the prevailing development model. Macroeconomic success was not seen in the microeconomy, nor in the subjective wellbeing of the population – which, even when not resulting in social revolts elsewhere, still exists throughout the continent.

The universalization of quality higher education as a human right became a vanguard banner in such self-convened social movements. In the case of Chile, a plebiscite approved the drafting a new constitution to govern the destinies of

the Republic after 2022. Here, higher education and its public-private character, its social or market grounding, and its financing are central issues of the current debate. However, the long days of social protest were abruptly silenced by the irruption of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which altered routines toward the troublesome.

COVID-19 tested the massification of higher education in Latin America generally. During these times, the sector enjoyed greater access – even compared to other, most economically disadvantaged sectors – with the technological advantages from previous online professional training. However, fully implemented as an emergency measure, the structural gaps in poverty levels, geographical dispersion, and access to the Internet were exposed. Likewise (and affecting the self, and therefore, expectations, decisions, and understandings of professional training): social capital, or the added value that someone obtains from mutually recognized relationships and connections [4]; cultural capital, the power that each person has in the form of a set of intellectual qualifications produced through the family and the school system [4]; and symbolic capital, the characteristics of a person, which are perceived by other social agents, that allow them to know him/her, recognize him/her and grant him/her a certain value [4]. Differentiated cultural, social, and symbolic capitals are reflected in the segmentation of higher education: students from lower socioeconomic strata attend universities with limited economic resources – or, by borrowing, attend those characterized by their massiveness – while those from middle and high strata attend universities with greater resources and selectivity. This segmentation is closely linked to the fragmentation of higher education, confluences of social, cultural, symbolic capitals, as well as horizons of possibilities for choice of universities, professional institutes or technical training centers. Manifest moreover with online education during COVID-19, structural gaps continue to affect access to and effectiveness of higher education [5] – even if some parts of Latin America have made progress toward free access for the most economically disadvantaged.

During this time, there has been discussion regarding teaching and its challenges in the pandemic [1, 6]. However, little has been said about how the pandemic has put tension on the autonomous learning of professionals in training. This ability, which is mediated by their cultural, social and symbolic capitals, is directly related to the arguments developed by students to sustain a conceptualization of higher education as either consumer good or human right, and therefore also affects their processes of self-learning. Under a premise of market education, where students are customers who consume a service toward the ultimate goal of obtaining a professional degree as soon as possible, any tendency toward autonomous learning would be lower. Here, and so as not to delay the training process, demands for greater tutelage – to overcome anxieties and insecurities derived from the need to successfully overcome the challenges offered by professional training – would be greater. Meanwhile, a conception of education as a human right – underpinned by personal development in accordance with humanistic, social thinking, and central to the advancement of nations and their citizens – would therefore ideally be more inclined to self-learning, a "learning to learn", where error would be part of learning, of a process of rest and decanting, which in no case would mean extending the deadlines for timely graduation.

The development of self-learning skills is acquired throughout all educational levels until becoming a professional. However, in Latin America in general, these educational levels are also fragmented, passing on to the next level the responsibility of correcting the gaps that remain throughout the educational trajectories. Thus, upon arrival at higher education, students usually present difficulties in reading and writing; comprehension and interpretation of texts; logical reasoning; and oral and written expression [7, 8], which is directly related to their social, cultural and

symbolic capitals. This hinders self-learning, and therefore has hindered the progress of online education in times of pandemic, tensioning the opportunities offered by the various technologies to expand knowledge with the actual use of these possibilities by the student body. Thus, the development of skills for autonomous learning is a prerequisite to speak of online higher education, in any of its modalities, if what we want is the achievement of learning for life and not only obtaining a professional degree that favors competition in the socio-professional market.

The irruption of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has made it clear that autonomous learning "represents the navigation chart that students will have in the coming years to achieve their educational objectives" ([6]: 67). The development of this skill is central, if we consider that the ability to achieve ubiquitous learning is an essential tool for future professional work. Ubiquitous learning is that which occurs anywhere and at any time, e.g., via a cell phone or other devices close to people [9, 10] that takes advantage of the universality of the internet as an additional media dimension through which we can perceive the world and provide opportunities for new learning [11]. Hence the relevance of self-learning: universities will have to discuss whether they "increasingly transfer e-learning solutions or prolong face-to-face learning scenarios to mobile devices" ([12]: 9). This is in line with the changes that universities will have to face in the future [6], where, after the return of face-to-face teaching, it will be necessary to calibrate mistakes and successes of online academic work in times of COVID-19 [6, 13, 14] and to discuss the implications of scaling digitization, hybridization and ubiquitous learning. To achieve this, practical and specific digital competencies are increasingly required, in addition to those of abstraction, reasoning, synthesis and critical thinking [10, 15]. This supports the need to expand the social, cultural and symbolic capitals of higher education students, where the use of technologies represents an effective means for the opening of cultural and social worlds and imaginaries, thus enhancing the development of such skills. In this sense, the obligatory nature of online education, as a result of the pandemic, has opened a possibility of experimentation and innovation in opening everyday worlds and expanding the cultural, social and symbolic capitals of students, which, while desirable as early as possible, should at least be present in higher education.

The return to face-to-face professional training after the pandemic is a necessity for the achievement of quality higher education, which integrates the dimension of "learning by doing", one of the greatest human learning capacities. However, the development of online classes in times of COVID-19 has shown that the use of communication and information technologies of various kinds allow students to learn and discuss different economic, social, cultural and political realities; increases their abstraction, reasoning, synthesis and critical thinking skills; and expands cultural, social, and symbolic capitals. In this sense, the permanent incorporation of various online platforms into work – which has allowed instant connectivity with other people from different parts of the world, as well as to know, reflect and discuss different realities, subjectivities, cultures and conditions – is a need that has been evidenced during the period of teaching in pandemic.

Thus, the crossroads between the technological requirements derived from the development of online higher education, its massification, fragmentation and segmentation, and its more clear manifestation during the pandemic calls for the promotion of educational policies that consider the living conditions of the less favored segments [6]; that promote ubiquitous self-learning; that take into account the experiences lived in times of COVID-19, in which collaborative work networks have been strengthened and expanded by the use of various electronic platforms; and the narrowed geographical horizons of professional work. The development of such policies requires visionary strategies to face the coming changes in education

and the future of professional work, reconceptualizing the university in its educational models, and in the ways of dealing with research, dissemination of knowledge and linkage with their environments, which are also expanding.
