Given that higher education systems everywhere have opened to the masses, this paper analyses to what extent this phenomenon has really been accompanied by an effective democratisation of access and success in Portugal and Brazil. It looks at the expansion of higher education and discusses how the political system and higher education institutions have responded to the need for better educated populations and increased demand for tertiary education. Equity of access is analysed by comparing the ratio of candidates from different socio-economic backgrounds to overall capacity. This indicates that the apparent democratisation of academic access is in fact only relative; on this basis, there are grounds for concern as disadvantaged social backgrounds seem to generate high rates of academic failure and dropout.