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Стратифицированные маршруты в высшее образование: систематический обзор исследований транзита «колледж – вуз»
The massification of higher education has made a university degree a widespread and socially expected goal, while simultaneously intensifying stratification within higher education itself. To explain educational inequality, it is increasingly important to examine not only whether students enter higher education, but also which segments of the higher education system they enter. Against this background, the college-to-university pathway constitutes a significant route into higher education and a mechanism for redistributing students within a hierarchically structured university field. This article presents a systematic literature review and analyses studies that conceptualize the college-to-university transition as a process of educational choice: how educational aspirations are formed, how risks and costs are assessed, how the receiving university is selected, and how plans are reshaped after enrolment. The review is based on an analysis of 117 publications selected from the international and Russian literature according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The review shows that this transition is socially stratified and often mediated by logics of risk avoidance. For students with fewer resources, it serves as a way to reduce the likelihood of educational failure while preserving access to a degree; for more privileged groups, it can in some cases function as a compensatory strategy for bypassing selective barriers. The prior institutional environment also plays a substantial role. Colleges institutionally affiliated with universities are more likely to provide an infrastructure that supports transition, including access to information, advising, and curricular alignment, whereas sectors less connected to higher education amplify uncertainty and increase risks at both the admission and adaptation stages. Within higher education, the choice of the receiving university generally reproduces the hierarchy of the system and is often accompanied by the underutilization of educational opportunities, thereby reinforcing inequality. The article’s central conclusion is that the literature still retains a “black box” between social origin and the concrete choice of universities. A promising direction for future research is to examine how students interpret the institutional landscape and translate these interpretations into actual decisions.