Skip the exam and grab a rifle: Russia is making higher education less accessible

While speaking at the HR EXPO PRO forum on June 18, Russia’s Education and Science Minister Valery Falkov said that “there is no need for universal higher education” and that having all high school graduates pursue university degrees is undesirable “from the standpoint of the economy and the labor market.” Instead, he argued, higher education should be “balanced” with vocational education.

Those remarks have been backed up by concrete policy initiatives. For several years now, authorities in Moscow and a number of other regions have been encouraging finishing ninth-graders to opt for vocational college rather than continuing on through the final two years of high school. According to the Higher School of Economics' Education Indicators: 2026 statistical yearbook, in 2024, 42.5% of ninth-grade graduates remained in school, while 51.3% enrolled in vocational colleges. Full data for 2025 will not be available until 2027, but last summer Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko reported that 62% of students finishing ninth grade had opted to attend vocational colleges in the upcoming school year.

Now the campaign to “rebalance” the education system has begun from the other direction as well. In early February, the Education and Science Ministry announced that it had “revised the higher education system” by eliminating 47,000 tuition-paying places (13%) at Russian universities. Ministry head Falkov later explained that most of the cuts (30,500 places) affected part-time and evening programs. By field of study, the reductions included 13,900 places in law, 7,400 in management, 7,300 in economics, 3,400 in public administration, and 2,300 in advertising and public relations — a sum total of just 34,300 places, meaning nearly 13,000 more spots were cut elsewhere.

Tuition-paying places were cut across 28 bachelor's programs and 12 specialist-degree programs. They include architecture, oil and gas engineering, psychology, conflict studies, business informatics, commodity science, housing and public utilities infrastructure, regional studies, journalism, publishing, philology, linguistics, fire safety engineering, mining, dentistry, engineering design, and technological support for manufacturing, among others.

The Higher School of Economics' statistical yearbook shows that in 2024 Russia had more than 2.3 million fee-paying university students, compared with 2 million studying on state-funded scholarships. (For comparison, in the 2010-11 academic year, 62.8% of students paid tuition, whereas by 2024-25 that figure had fallen to 53.4%.)

Law, economics, and management have indeed been the country's most popular fields of study. Of the 827,600 degrees awarded in 2024, 156,700 (18.9% of the total) were in economics and management, while 97,300 (11.8%) were in law. Teacher education ranked third, with 91,300 graduates (11%).

A source who attended the Education and Science Ministry's strategic planning session in February 2025 told The Insider that the cuts were to be implemented as follows: for each university, the ministry would calculate the average number of students actually admitted to a given program over the 2023-2025 period and use that figure as the upper limit for future admissions. At the same time, specialized universities would be required to eliminate programs outside their core fields. As an example, the source cited Moscow City University, which was ordered to discontinue all programs except teacher training starting from Sept. 1, 2026.

“Students weren't even allowed to finish their degrees. The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, for example, took in journalism students to let them complete their studies,” the source explained.

Speaking at the State Duma back in February, Falkov also addressed the issue of non-core programs, describing them as abnormal and suggesting that the authorities “either rename these universities or put things in order.”

A source at the Higher School of Economics confirmed this description of the new system:

“Universities used to set the number of tuition-paying places themselves, but the figure was largely nominal. Exceeding it wasn't a problem, and the rule of thumb was simply 'admit however many students enroll.' If admissions exceeded expectations by a significant margin, the university would open an extra group and spend the summer looking for instructors who could take on additional teaching hours. Last year, a cap on tuition-paying places was introduced for all universities, and apparently it came into force this year. From what I've heard, the cuts largely spared the top universities. In our case, the quota was simply set at roughly the same level as before.”

According to the HSE lecturer, tuition-paying places are now allocated in much the same way state-funded places have long been: the ministry determines how many places a university receives in a given field of study such as “philology,” then the university then decides how to divide those places among individual programs, such as Romance and Germanic philology, Russian philology, or classical philology.

Information on cuts to specific programs at individual universities remains limited and has emerged only piecemeal from around the country. In the Rostov region, for example, Don State Technical University reduced its tuition-paying intake by one-third, from 11,600 to 7,800 places. The deepest cuts affected the humanities — including economics, law, and psychology. At Southern Federal University, the number of tuition-paying places was reduced by 4%, again primarily in humanities programs.

In Tatarstan, Kazan Federal University also lost one-third of its tuition-paying places, with admissions reduced from 5,100 to 3,300. The university did not disclose which specific programs were affected. Other major universities in the republic said they had not been subject to any cuts.

In the Krasnoyarsk region, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University announced cuts to tuition-paying places, closing admissions to economics, management, and public administration programs. Law remained available, but the number of tuition-paying places was reduced. In total, the university eliminated about 200 places. Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University had planned to cut places in its linguistics program, but ultimately kept admissions at the 2025 level.

The cuts have affected at least one prestigious university: the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), where the academy's website announced a “redistribution of quotas.” A closer look at the changes, however, shows that tuition-paying programs in the academy's flagship field of public administration were among those eliminated. For example, the “Legal Support for State and Municipal Administration” program previously offered 25 tuition-paying places, but under this year's admissions campaign, none are available. Likewise, tuition-paying admissions for the “Digital Government and Economics and Public Administration” programs have been reduced from 40 places each to zero.

Igor (name changed), an education management specialist and former dean at a Russian university, says the main burden of the cuts is falling on the regions, adding that reductions in tuition-paying places are affecting not only non-core programs but also the leading universities in Russia's federal subjects:

“At RANEPA, the places weren't actually cut — they were redistributed. Even so, public administration is precisely the field where the academy has sought to establish a monopoly on teaching. For now, the cuts are not affecting the top universities that are allowed to set their own educational standards, nor institutions whose rectors have direct access to Falkov. But in the regions, higher education is collapsing.”

Another factor affecting the number of university places is the special admissions quota for veterans of Russia's war against Ukraine. Ten percent of all state-funded places have been reserved for this category of applicants. However, The Insider has found that the quota has never been filled.

In 2025, for example, the Education and Science Ministry allocated 51,000 places to this category of applicants, but just over 28,000 people enrolled. For the 2026 admissions campaign, the ministry has set aside 53,500 places.

Strictly speaking, calling these places a “quota for SVO veterans” is not entirely accurate. Preferential admission applies to participants in other Russian military campaigns as well, along with several other legally equivalent categories.

The applicants for these spots are divided into two groups. The first — which includes Heroes of Russia, children of decorated combat veterans, children of medical workers who died while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the children of those killed or seriously wounded in Russia's war against Ukraine — may enroll without taking entrance exams at all.

Applicants in the second category — veterans of the war against Ukraine (including those who fought for the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” beginning in 2014), as well as their children, widows and widowers, and the children of veterans of other Russian military campaigns, including Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Syria — must still take entrance exams, but they only need to achieve the minimum passing scores.

A mathematics lecturer at one of Moscow's leading universities says that not everyone admitted under the quota has a connection to the current war, and not all of them are weak students: “We admitted one outstanding student who had won academic Olympiads. He told us right away that he was applying under the quota. Then he added, 'Don't think my father is fighting in the special military operation — he's a veteran of the Chechen War.'“

According to available data, applicants using the special quota most often enroll in medical and teacher-training universities. They are least likely to apply to elite technical institutions such as the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) or the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI. The mathematics lecturer says quota applicants generally avoid the strongest universities because they realistically assess their chances of academic success:

“These young people aren't fools. They understand that if they come here, they're facing six months of humiliation before being expelled after their first exam session. When the quota was first introduced, a few weak students got in under it and were later expelled for failing their exams. So I can say two things about the quota: it isn't being filled, and those who are admitted under it don't cause any problems.”

The cuts to university places and the effort to steer more students into vocational colleges are part of a much broader education reform. A year ago, the Education and Science Ministry published a presentation titled “A New Model of Higher Education.” It lays out plans for “regulating tuition-paying admissions,” abolishing the Bologna system, prioritizing technical fields, and introducing “qualifications that are meaningful to employers.”

The idea of “meaningful qualifications” is intended to get students into the workforce earlier. Back in 2024, Falkov said that students should be granted employment qualifications while still studying: “For example, after completing a module or course in chemical analysis, a student could immediately receive a qualification recognized by employers and begin working in a job related to their field of study.”

Last summer, as part of an effort to reduce the country’s teacher shortage, the Duma passed a law allowing students who have completed their third year of university to teach in schools and vocational colleges in their field of study. Igor believes one of the reform's main objectives is to plug gaps in the labor market:

“The trend is to push students into the labor market as early as possible. That solves immediate problems but creates bigger ones down the road. The current system differs from the Soviet one in that it doesn't plan for the long term at all. Before the war, the government invested in universities and launched effective catch-up initiatives such as Project 5-100. Now you're expected either to fight or to work as a doctor, engineer, or teacher.”

Dmitry Dubrovsky, a historian, sociologist, and professor at the Free University, likewise argues that Russia's higher education reform is sacrificing long-term goals for short-term gains:

“Yes, in a few years this may help fill some gaps. It may train new IT specialists to replace those who left the country and strengthen defense-related fields such as drones and cybersecurity. But it's effectively borrowing against the future, and the consequences for science and the economy over the next five to ten years will be significant. The pattern of the cuts shows that policymakers believe they can manage the labor market. They think they can predict what that market will look like five years from now, when today's applicants graduate. But forecasting that far ahead would be extraordinarily ambitious even in peacetime.”

Against the backdrop of rapid technological change, both the job market and the workforce are constantly evolving. That is precisely why the ability to learn and relearn is becoming increasingly important. Universities around the world are moving away from a model centered on the transmission of knowledge in favor of one focused on developing “competencies” — something more than the mere ability to treat illnesses, teach children, draft engineering plans, or write software.

Particular emphasis is placed on so-called transferable skills. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) includes among them “literacy and critical-thinking skills, including problem-solving, analytical thinking, and communication skills.” The European Commission highlights “learning to learn, social and civic competences, initiative, and entrepreneurship,” among others.

According to education management specialist Igor, although officials at the Education and Science Ministry also speak about a “competency-based education,” they mean something very different: “For 15 years, Russia was moving in the same direction as the rest of the world, and quite successfully. But now the ideologues have taken over. In effect, they're rebuilding the education system around a knowledge-based model like the one in the Soviet Union —  memorizing when a particular war took place, rather than knowing how to find that information. Putin thinks the same way.”

Another goal of the current reform, according to The Insider's source, is to reduce students' academic mobility by locking them into a chosen track from the very beginning of their studies.

Until recently, the Bologna system allowed students to change their academic trajectory after completing two years of a bachelor's program, and they could later pursue a master's degree in an entirely different field. Beginning in September 2026, however, the Education and Science Ministry is introducing a new system at 17 universities. Although initially a pilot project, it is intended to be expanded nationwide.

Under the new model, the bachelor's and master's degrees will be replaced by a “basic higher education” program lasting four to six years and a “specialized higher education” program lasting one to two years. During the first stage, students will be allowed to transfer only to closely related fields. During the second, they will only be able to deepen their existing specialization, with no opportunity for a significant change in career direction.

According to Free University historian Dubrovsky, Russia's withdrawal from the Bologna Process amounts to “shooting itself in the foot”:

“The whole idea was that students would retain their freedom of choice during their bachelor's studies. Only after deciding what they actually wanted to do would they move on to a master's degree. Instead, they've revived the Soviet logic, where first-year students are put on tracks they'll follow for the rest of their lives. But today's labor market is nothing like the Soviet one. Modern graduates are likely to change professions two or three times over the course of their careers. The most important thing they learn at university is how to work with information. This reform looks like the authorities expect to reindustrialize the country within five years, even though advanced economies are moving in exactly the opposite direction.”

The growing emphasis on skills-oriented education rather than purely academic knowledge is a global trend, but other countries are implementing that idea very differently from Russia, Simon Marginson, a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol, told The Insider. Marginson is a leading expert on China's higher education system, where the balance of students across university programs is also subject to government regulation. In Russia, however, “the authorities are doing this because they believe the science and engineering disciplines should be prioritized,” whereas China follows a different logic: “Yes, the share of STEM places at Chinese universities is higher, but public demand for those programs is also higher. Families understand that graduates in those fields are needed by the economy. If someone wants to study languages or the humanities, there will be fewer places available, but there will also be fewer applicants.” However, China's education policy is implemented through various forms of financial support rather than by restricting tuition-paying places.

Moreover, Chinese authorities continue to allow universities to exercise considerable autonomy. Even in Hong Kong, academic freedom has remained largely intact despite the territory's integration into China, Marginson argues: “Although civil society faces severe restrictions and university leadership is expected to demonstrate loyalty to the state, scholars in the humanities can still research difficult subjects quite objectively — including topics such as Xi Jinping's biography — without encountering serious problems.”

Another element of the education reform is the expansion of targeted admissions and the growing number of students required to work in assigned jobs after graduation. Beginning with the class of 2026, all graduates from Russia's medical universities and colleges are subject to a new rule: they must spend three years working in clinics within the compulsory health insurance (OMS) system. Officials avoid calling this mandatory service, referring to it instead as “mentorship,” but the substance remains the same.

And Russian officials are increasingly proposing to extend compulsory work assignments to other professions. Members of the State Duma have called for mandatory post-graduation service for teachers.

The idea has also been endorsed by Vladimir Litvinenko, rector of Saint Petersburg Mining University, who proposed replacing state-funded university places with government education grants that would be considered fulfilled only after graduates complete three years of work in industry. Vladimir Medinsky has gone even further, arguing that the same principle should apply across all fields of study: “Someone must always pay for education. If the state pays, there must also be mandatory job placement and an employment contract.”

For now, state-funded university places remain, but the number of targeted admissions — under which graduates are required to work for three to five years in designated positions — continues to grow. For the 2026 admissions cycle, the Education and Science Ministry has approved targets of 33,800 medical students, 19,500 engineering and technology students, and 13,500 future teachers under this system.

Dubrovsky sees the policy as yet another sign of a return to Soviet-era practices:

“They're trying to dress up a purely Soviet idea in market rhetoric. But the logic of the market is exactly the opposite. Students compete for internships at companies and try to prove they're the best candidates. Targeted admissions are risky for employers too. Companies are expected to invest in someone from their first year at university, with no guarantee that the student will become a good specialist by the time they graduate.”

Another way the authorities are steering students toward medicine, teaching, and engineering is by changing the rules for subsidized student loans, which starting from this year will be available only to students enrolling in those three fields. According to education management specialist Igor, this amounts to deliberate pressure on the humanities. “A handful of places can still be reserved for reproducing the elite — institutions like Skoltech, for example. At the same time, the authorities can continue expanding programs such as Time of Heroes, the School of Governors, and similar initiatives.”

When discussing higher education and vocational training, officials often speak of an oversupply of lawyers and economists and, by contrast, a shortage of skilled tradespeople. That conventional wisdom is wrong in two respects. First, only about half of vocational college students are actually training for blue-collar occupations.

Russia's vocational education system is divided into two unequal tracks. The first trains “skilled workers and employees” — essentially the successors to the old vocational schools. According to the Higher School of Economics' statistical yearbook, these programs graduated 163,600 students in 2024. Of those, 106,800 trained for skilled trades and 16,500 for agriculture, while the remainder studied humanities, social sciences, arts, economics, and management.

Another 688,000 students completed “mid-level specialist” programs — the modern equivalent of the former technical colleges. Of these, 274,500 studied engineering, technology, and technical sciences, including computer programming. Nearly 100,000 trained in medicine and pharmacy, while 195,400 studied economics, law, management, social work, and tourism. The remaining graduates qualified as teachers, archivists, and in other professions.

In other words, blue-collar occupations account for only about half of all vocational graduates, and roughly another quarter are the same lawyers, economists, and managers — only with vocational rather than university qualifications.

The second misconception concerns employment outcomes. According to the HSE yearbook, in 2024, 74.5% of recent university graduates were working in jobs related to their field of study. Among graduates of mid-level specialist programs, the figure was 60.7%, while for graduates of skilled worker programs it was just 55.8%.

A study published in May found widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of Russia's vocational education. Thirty-six regions — about 40% of the country — reported that graduates lacked adequate skills. Nationwide, the quality of vocational training received an average score of just 2.97 out of 5. Researchers attributed the poor results to “outdated facilities, obsolete curricula, a shortage of instructors, and insufficient practical training.”

These are precisely the colleges into which Russian ninth graders are now being actively steered. The number of state-funded places in vocational education already exceeds the number available at universities by 40%.

Dmitry Dubrovsky argues that discussions about law and economics graduates who do not work in their chosen fields also overlook those who go on to start businesses:

“People were willing to pay for degrees in those fields because they understood that, one way or another, they would find a place in the economy. The Education and Science Ministry sees that as 'wasted resources' and believes those people are needed elsewhere. And in wartime, it's pretty clear where the authorities would rather have them.”

Anton (name changed at his request), a lecturer at one of Moscow's leading universities, believes the reduction in tuition-paying places is, on balance, a positive development. In his view, even Russia's top universities are merely average by international standards, while institutions below that level often provide an education of little value.

“A typical second-tier university is RUDN — I used to teach there. I was told: 'Teach whatever you want, just don't be late and don't fail students.' At a typical provincial university, you can attend classes or skip them altogether — you'll still get your credits because expelling students isn't financially worthwhile. In practice, students spend four or five years not really studying, but going through the motions — showing up for exam sessions in order to receive a piece of cardboard labeled 'Diploma' at the end.”

Anton argues that the demand for mass higher education reflects not only Russians' desire to study but also distortions in the labor market. Human resources departments at many private companies insist on hiring university graduates for virtually every position, he says: “That's bad for people who actually received a good education. I don't think the top universities will suffer from these cuts. As long as it's the lousy universities being affected, I see that as a good thing. I'd fully support reducing tuition-paying places if it weren't for the elephant in the room — the ongoing war and military draft deferments.”

None of The Insider's sources deny that second-tier universities face serious quality problems. As Dubrovsky notes: “In the 1990s, the government essentially abandoned the universities, telling them: 'Earn money however you can.' Some of them effectively started selling diplomas. It's an unhealthy system. Instead of being held accountable through peer review, higher education is regulated by [state education oversight department] Rosobrnadzor, many of whose own experts have histories of academic misconduct.”

As the number of tuition-paying places shrinks, the cost of studying continues to climb. According to the Education and Science Ministry's figures, average tuition fees across Russia rose by 10.7% in 2026.

The increases have been even steeper at elite universities. According to RBC, annual tuition for the economics department at the Higher School of Economics rose by 30%, from 770,000 rubles in 2025 to 1 million rubles. Law increased by 35%, from 520,000 to 700,000 rubles. At the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), the sharpest increase was for “Economics: Entrepreneurship and Business Performance Management,” where annual tuition rose from 600,000 to 750,000 rubles. At Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, “Economics and Business Planning” increased from 530,000 to 695,000 rubles, while at Moscow State University, annual tuition for economics rose from 750,000 to 900,000 rubles.

According to education specialist Igor, some universities have even raised tuition retroactively for students already enrolled: “The contracts allow for indexation, but it used to be considered bad form to actually enforce it. Now many universities are doing exactly that. HSE and RANEPA have also abolished all of their old tuition discounts, replacing them with a single new one that's less generous.”

Igor believes one objective of the current reforms is to strip universities of their remaining financial autonomy. During a working group preparing the reforms, he says, officials openly argued that “the leading universities need to be brought to heel.” In his view, that is why the reforms are being imposed through mandatory directives that even the country's top institutions cannot ignore. “August will be the moment of truth. In the past, if more fee-paying students enrolled than originally planned, universities were allowed to increase their admission quotas. We'll see what happens now.”

For students unable to secure one of Russia's increasingly scarce scholarship places, there is another option: more and more Russians are enrolling at Chinese universities. In the 2024-25 academic year, the number of Russian citizens studying in China reached 21,000.

A Moscow family originally from the Russian Far East, whose son graduated from high school this year, told The Insider that they are sending him to Dalian Polytechnic University to study business administration: “It's affordable and the quality is good. The campuses are excellent. The first year is devoted to learning the language, and at the end there are two exams — mathematics and Chinese — after which students move into the first year of the degree program. Tuition costs 10,400 yuan a year (about 120,000 rubles, or $1,535), and the dormitory is another 6,400 yuan (about 73,500 rubles or $941).”

According to the same HSE statistical yearbook, the average tuition for one semester at a private Russian university is 73,700 rubles ($943), compared with 95,000 rubles ($1,216) at a public university. By that measure, studying in China can actually be cheaper. More importantly, there is no Unified State Exam (EGE), no compulsory “mentorship” program after graduation, and no risk that a chosen degree program will suddenly be abolished as “unnecessary for the labor market.”