The converging processes of massification, vocationalization, and marketization expanded access to higher education. At the same time, they seemed to transform notions about the functions and the social value of higher education. Emerging countries, among them Brazil and China, embarked on the massification route in the 1990s, keeping the Anglo-American model as a compass. Different models of higher education are associated with distinct narratives about the university experience. The intense expansion of enrollment in higher education in China and Brazil has not yet translated into the effective generalization of opportunities of access and conclusion of courses, at least in the narratives of both Chinese and Brazilian students. Both countries present a convergence of massification, vocationalization, and marketization, with some discrepancy on the emphasis on each dimension. Vocationalization is stronger and more explicit in China, while it is less stressed in Brazil. Marketization is strongly marked in Brazil. Regardless of the differences in the time of their system expansion, the two countries have joined the evolution of the global field of higher-education institutions. Brazilian and Chinese systems have raised enrollment, improved opportunities of access, diversified curricula, and invested in internationalization.