Private Universities in Russia: stages, problems and development prospects

The purpose of the study is to analyze the current problems of the non-governmental sector of Russian higher education and to search for possible solutions. The first private higher education institutions (Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences and Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages) appeared in the early 19th century. The abolition of serfdom and the great reforms of the 1860s and 1870s ensured a powerful growth of industrial production, which required personnel. By 1914, 46% of Russian universities were private, and 42% of the student body studied there. The development trajectory of private higher education was deformed by the First World War and interrupted by the revolutionary events of 1917. It resulted in the dominance of the state at all levels of the educational sphere. Private higher education received a new impetus for development in the context of the transition to a market economy. Russian private universities lag behind similar educational institutions in developed countries in their positions both in the global and domestic educational space. The private higher school has real development prospects due to the deepening of inter-university cooperation, the formation of regional educational clusters, the creation of «digital branches» in small towns, and the attraction of highly qualified teachers aged 60+ who were forced to end their careers in state universities during the implementation of the «Priority-2020» program.