A comprehensive, up-to-date look at modern Russian higher education.
By the mid-eighteenth century, when the first university appeared in
Russia, many European nations could boast of long and glorious
university traditions. But Russia, with its poorly developed system of
elementary and secondary education, lagged behind other European
countries and seemed destined for a long spell of second-tier
performance. Yet by the mid-twentieth century, the fully reformed system
of Soviet higher education was perceived as an unexpected success, one
that transformed the country into a major scientific power throughout
the Cold War. Today, the international community is keeping close tabs
on the fast development of world-class higher education in Russia,
specifically its large-scale changes and reforms.
Higher Education in Russia is the first comprehensive, up-to-date
overview and analysis of modern Russian higher education. Aimed at a
large international audience, it describes the current realities of
higher education in Russia, as well as the main principles, logic, and
relevant historical and cultural factors. Outlining the evolution of the
higher education system in tsarist Russia throughout the nineteenth
century, Yaroslav Kuzminov and Maria Yudkevich describe the development
of its mass-scale higher education system from the end of the Second
World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond. They also
discuss the principal elements of today's Russian higher education
system while exploring the system's governance model and the logic of
its resource allocation. They touch on university selection, the
structure of the country's academic profession, the organization of
research, and the major excellence programs of leading universities.
Illustrating the idea that the development of the higher education
system is very much linked with the European experience, the authors
argue that Russian higher education was often the domain of successful
(and not so successful) education experiments and innovations. Higher
Education in Russia is a must-read for scholars of higher education and
Russian history alike.
