The reproduction of inequalities in tertiary education as well as in the whole public education was one of the decisive theses of the education research in the sixties and eighties (e.g. Bourdieu 1978, Boudon 1981). This was related to the structuralist approach of mobility, which interprets the movement of individual layers in the context of social-economical-structural processes among the vertical social circumstances (Baron 1998). The origin of this approach can be found in the fact that the emergence from the lower social strata, which encompasses greater masses, often naturally accompanies the structural social changes and the expansion and transformation of the school system (Andorka et al. 1994, Kozma 2004). In the last decades the expansion of tertiary education – embedded in the macro processes of the society – was one of those processes through which we could define social mobility. Connected to it, one of the current central questions was whether the more and more differentiated and diversified tertiary education, which encompassed greater and greater masses, contributed to the reduction of social inequalities in the newly structured student multitude, and whether tertiary education is able (and whether it sets as a goal) to compensate for the social and economic disadvantages under the changed conditions (Veroszta 2009, Hrubos 2006, 2009). According to the experiences of the international researches several theories described how students from the lower strata got into tertiary education, considering not only structural but also individual aspects (Baron 1998).

We consider as our starting-point of the theory stating that inequalities are still present in tertiary education. These inequalities do not only appear on the occasion of the admission but they thicken according to the inner selective structures of the tertiary education. We consider colleges for advanced studies (CASs) as institutions that are one of the shapers of this inner structure. So we can consider the CAS admission and the (self)exclusion from them as selective breakpoints, partly because of the selectivity experienced during the admission, and partly because of the advantages of the admission (cf. eg. Szijártó 1991, Bordás & Ceglédi 2012). Related to this we start out from the analogous attitude of the micro level approach, according to which the effect of social background can still be felt in tertiary education. From the point of view of CASs this appears in the fact that the students’ family-social background plays a role in their admission.

The CASs are the oldest institutionalized talent development initiatives of the tertiary education in Hungary. Each CAS has its own profile, gradually simmering through time, formed by its members or leaders, yet still some common elements can be perceived in their operation. The CAS students form communities, where students (mainly, but not in all cases) live in a dormitory. These communities are formed as a result of professional interest or other common traits (e.g. religious scale of values, trans-border origin, and artistic interest). In every case their goal is to create new possibilities for themselves beyond those offered by the university/college in the areas of study and community experiences. CASs offer the participants an opportunity to listen to lectures about topics beside or beyond the university/college curriculum (held by noted, sometimes Nobel prized researchers), to discuss topics, learn languages, take part in common free time programmes etc. Both social and community activities are productive scenes of intellectual and professional socialization. The key elements of professional get-togethers are represented by the debates, the sharing of experiences and the reinforcement of norms. (See in more details e.g. Gerő et al. 2011, Fazekas & Sik 2007, Bordás & Ceglédi 2012.)

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