Abstrakt:
In conditions of the systemic transformation education has become one of the most important factors of the vertical social movement. Most Polish people share that conviction. Especially, the youth has begun to treat education as a tool for acquiring certain skills and qualifications necessary to reach desired positions in the social structure. At the same time a specific process of marketization (co-modification) of education has occurred and it has been reflected in the aspirations and values of young people. The process of co-modification contributes to a number of positive tendencies, e.g. popularization of education or rise of educational aspirations and consequently, to statistical increase of the level of social education. However, contrary to expectations, it does not diminish but strengthens the social, cultural and status differences in educational opportunities. It contributes, at the same time, to emergence of certain social pathologies, e.g. to the strengthening of homogenization of the flow of youth into higher education institutions as well as other anomalies within the entire higher education system.
