The Changing Russian University (PDF)

When the Soviet Union collapsed universities were freed from state control and left to themselves. This forced universities to be much more market-oriented. This book explores this transformation from the end of the Soviet Union until the present. Based on extensive original research, the book charts the struggles of universities, showing how chaos and decline came to what had been one of the triumphs of the Soviet Union - a higher education system which provided a high standard of advanced education to large numbers of people and made major research achievements. The book shows how a lack of funds, lack of commercial experience and the ending of former means of support such as strong university-state industry links brought about huge disruption; how universities responded with a range of measures such as charging for tutoring and examinations, handling research on a commercial basis and new forms of co-operation; and how all this impacted on subjects of study and on underlying ideas about what a university is for. The book argues that the shock to the system in Russia was so severe that the Russian case serves as an excellent 'survival guide' to universities experiencing similar changes in other parts of the world. By investigating the phenomenon of Russian universities becoming more market-oriented the book contributes to developing further the marketization concept. It summarizes the existing knowledge in this field of study, offers a new framework for analysis of the phenomenon of university marketization and discusses the marketization of Russian universities in the light of comparative studies.