This paper will provide a summary of different viewpoints on the current situation of higher education both in Latin American and Europe, whose institutions are nowadays taking a bilateral look at each other instead of having the former simply reflecting the models of the latter. It will discuss such concepts as “equity” and “social cohesion,” as related to higher education institutions’ everyday life. We dare say, and believe, that a new era of the global university has been conceived and the embryo is growing in its womb, already visible; precisely due to the discordant voices emerging from the core of the “model university” from the North, as well as the assertive voices from the South, which proclaim that there are other possibilities, ones that had always been there but had been silenced by colonialism, but which still linger on in the field of academic knowledge. Since the beginning of the 21st century, due to changes in the political and social climate in Latin America, education has been awarded more public funding and, in some countries, affirmative action policies were implemented favouring populations who had been historically excluded from higher education. This paper will highlight issues raised by RIAIPE3 project work.