Introduction to the problem

1. The role of educational career planning

2. The problem of payment higher education

3. The role of the USE in the accessibility of higher education

Summary

Literature

Introduction to the problem

The issues of developing education in our country are hot issues, they now affect the interests of almost every Russian family. One of these issues is the accessibility of higher education.

Since 2000, the number of students admitted to universities has exceeded the number of those who successfully completed 11 classes and received a matriculation certificate. In 2006, this gap reached 270 thousand people. university admissions in last years exceeded 1.6 million people.

But a sharp decline in the number of applicants due to demographic reasons is not far off. For another year or two, the number of school graduates will exceed 1 million people, and then it will decrease to about 850-870 thousand. Judging by the situation in recent years, there should be a huge surplus of places in universities, and the problem of affordability will cease to exist. So is it or isn't it?

Now having a higher education has become prestigious. Will this situation change in the near future? To a large extent, the prevailing attitude towards the problems of higher education is formed under the influence of the trends that we observe - and it is rather inertial. In 2005, it is hard to believe that in the early 90s of the last century, young people thought whether to go to university or not. Many then preferred to make a choice in favor of the “real business”, and now they are “gaining” education in order to consolidate the social status that they received by postponing their studies to a later date.

But a significant part of those entering universities in recent years go there only because it becomes simply indecent not to have a higher education. Moreover, since higher education is becoming a social norm, the employer prefers to hire those who have received it.

So, everyone learns - sooner or later, but they learn, albeit in different ways. And we are in conditions educational boom it is hard to imagine that in a year or two the situation in the higher education system may change and, accordingly, our perception of many of the problems associated with entering higher education will change.

1. The role of educational career planning

June 30, 2007 Independent Institute social policy(IISP) held an international conference dedicated to the results of the large-scale project "Accessibility of higher education for socially vulnerable groups". Speaking about the accessibility of higher education, we will largely rely on these studies, which are unique for Russia. At the same time, we will dwell on the results of another interesting project“Monitoring of the economics of education”, which has been conducted by the HSE for the third year already.

As the results of both studies show, the desire to get a higher education and the willingness to pay for tuition is characteristic of almost all Russian families: both families with high incomes and families with very modest incomes. Parents are willing to pay high level education, and low. However, different family resources lead children to different outcomes. This determines not only which university the child will eventually enter, but also what job he will be able to apply for after receiving higher education. But different financial possibilities of families begin to influence the education of a child much earlier than it comes to entering universities.

These opportunities are already determined by the school in which the child went to study. If even 20 years ago you could simply send your son or daughter to a school next to your home, now you have to choose the “right” school. True, both 20 and 30 years ago, the quality of a school was largely assessed by how its graduates entered universities: everyone or almost everyone entered a good school. No matter how many eminent figures in education now say that the school should not prepare for the university, that the orientation towards admission deforms educational process, cripples the child's psyche and creates in him the wrong life attitudes - the school continues to prepare for the university. But if earlier it could be said that good teacher everyone enters, and this complemented the characteristics of the school, now a good school is a necessary, but, as a rule, far from a sufficient condition for entering the university in which the child wants to enter or in which his family wants to determine. And now almost no one remembers the teacher. At the same time, in recent years, the formation of educational networks of universities has been going on, and depending on whether the school belongs to the neighboring or far circle such a network, the chances of a child getting into the chosen university increase or decrease.

However, a child's real educational career begins even before school. Parents now have to think about it literally from his birth: in what kindergarten he will go on how to get into a prestigious school, which one to finish. It can be said that now from early childhood there is an accumulation of the "credit" educational history of the child. It is important not only how he studied, but also where. Admission or non-admission to a particular university is a logical continuation of an educational career, although it does not end with a university.

Consequently, a lot now depends on how early a family thinks about the prospects for the education of their child. And precisely access to a good kindergarten and good school largely determine access to a good university. When we talk about the problems of rural schools, we primarily focus on the fact that the quality of education in rural schools is lower than in urban ones. This is generally true, but it is far from the whole truth. In the village, a child goes to the kindergarten that is available: his family has no choice. He goes to the only school, he again has no choice. Therefore, his parents do not think about his educational career; more precisely, they can think about it quite late, when the question of whether to go to study at a university and, if so, which one, will already rise to its full height.

A similar problem exists for children from small and even medium-sized towns. The possibilities of choice are small for them from the very beginning, and the limited choice of the university only reinforces and confirms this.

If we talk about the possibilities of choosing a school for children in the capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg), then they are higher here. The role is played not only by higher incomes of the population, but also by the presence of a developed transport network that allows a schoolchild, especially a high school student, to get to school on the other side of the city.

At the same time, it must be emphasized that the educational opportunities provided by Moscow are significantly higher than in other regions of the country. This, in particular, is evidenced by the volume of paid services provided to the population of the city in education compared to other Russian regions.

So, the presence or absence of a choice either pushes parents to plan an educational career, or puts this problem on the back burner. And a separate question is the price of such a choice.

Is this situation exclusively Russian? Generally speaking, no. In developed countries, parents start planning their children's educational careers very early. Naturally, the quality of this planning depends on the educational and material level of the family. One thing is important - a modern university begins with a kindergarten.

2. The problem of paid higher education

In a study under the IISP project, E.M. Avraamova showed that children from families with a low resource potential are now enrolling en masse in universities, but this enrollment has ceased to fulfill its traditional role for higher education - the role of a social elevator. As a rule, after graduating from a higher educational institution, they find that higher education does not give them either income or social status.

Table 1

Relationship between the resource endowment of households and the possibility of obtaining a promising profession

Disappointment sets in. This is especially difficult for low-income families, since they, having sent their child to a university, as a rule, have already exhausted all the possibilities for a social breakthrough. Wealthier families, having discovered that the education received does not meet their expectations, rely on obtaining a second (other) higher education or some other prestigious educational program (for example, an MBA program).

A.G. Levinson, in his research within the framework of the IISP project, revealed that in Russian society, obtaining two higher educations is becoming a new social norm. 20% of persons aged 13-15 years old declare a desire to receive two higher educations, including 25% of young people in the capitals and 28% in the families of specialists.

Thus, educational careers are becoming increasingly complex, involving constant choices. Accordingly, the problem of the accessibility of higher education is changing, being built into a new social and economic context.

It is also important to take into account that entering a university does not solve all problems - this is only the beginning of the journey. You have to graduate from a prestigious university. And this has become an independent problem in recent years.

The availability of higher education also depends on how the state will finance it. Currently, spears are also breaking here. The majority of the population (according to the results of a study by A.G. Levinson) continues to believe that education, including higher education, should be free. But in fact, more than 46% of the total number of students in state universities pays. First year in state universities 57% study on a paid basis today. If we take into account the contingent of non-state universities, it turns out that in Russia at present every second student pays for higher education (in fact, 56% are already studying on a paid basis). Russian students). At the same time, the cost of education, both in the public and non-public sectors of higher education, is constantly growing.

As early as 2003, tuition fees at state universities exceeded tuition fees at non-state ones. At prestigious higher education institutions, tuition fees can be 2-10 times higher than the average, depending on the type of institution and specialty, as well as the location of the institution.

Significant funds are spent by families not only on education at the university, but also on admission to higher education. According to sociological research, families spend about 80 billion rubles on the transition from school to university. This is a lot of money, so changing the rules for admission to universities (for example, the introduction of a unified state exam - the Unified State Examination) will inevitably affect someone's material interests. Tutoring accounts for the largest share of the above amount (approximately 60%). It is unlikely that tutoring in itself can be considered an absolute evil. First, it was, for example, back in tsarist Russia, practiced in Soviet times, flourished in the present. Secondly, with mass production - and modern education is mass production - the need for an individual fit of a product or service to the needs of the consumer is inevitable. This is the normal role of the tutor.

But in recent years, for many tutors (although by no means for all), this role has been significantly transformed: it began to consist in the fact that the tutor had not only to teach something within the framework of school curriculum, and even not so much to give knowledge in accordance with the requirements of not universities, but a specific university, but to ensure admission to the chosen university. This meant that payment was taken not for giving knowledge and skills, but for certain information (about the features of examination problems, for example, or how to solve a specific problem) or even for informal services (to poke around, follow up, etc.). Therefore, it became necessary to take a tutor only and exclusively from the educational institution to which the child was going to enter (this applies both to the provision of some exclusive information, and to the provision of informal services). This does not mean that admission to all universities was necessarily associated with tutors or with informal relationships, but it became more and more difficult to enter prestigious universities or prestigious specialties without appropriate “support”. In general, the idea began to take shape that a good education at school was no longer enough to enter the university that allowed one to hope for a successful professional career in the future.

Sociological studies have shown that parents are still inclined to believe that "you can study at a well-known university for free, but it is no longer possible to enter it without money." Connections are an alternative to money. In a "regular" university, there may still be enough knowledge itself, but the knowledge itself is already differentiated into just knowledge, and knowledge, taking into account the requirements of a "specific university". And this knowledge is given only either by courses at the university, or again by tutors.

38.4% of applicants are guided only by knowledge. At the same time, the orientation only to knowledge when entering in this context means that the applicant and his family are not inclined to enter into informal relations for the sake of entering a university. But this does not at all indicate that such applicants will not use the services of tutors, it’s just that the perception of a tutor in this case is different - this is a person (a teacher or a university lecturer, just a certain specialist) who transfers knowledge, and does not “help with admission” .

Orientation to knowledge and money or/and connections among 51.2% of applicants indicates that the applicant (his family) believes that knowledge alone may not be enough, and it is necessary to insure either money or connections. In this case, the tutor performs a dual role - he must both teach and provide support to his client upon admission. The forms of this support can be different - from withdrawal to the right people before transferring money. Sometimes, however, a tutor can only teach, and intermediaries for transferring money are sought independently of him. And, finally, the third category of applicants openly counts only on money or connections. At the same time, a tutor can also be taken, but his payment is actually the mechanism for paying for admission: this is the person who pushes into the university - we are no longer talking about the transfer of knowledge.

The extremely high proportion of those who consider it necessary to use money and connections when entering a university (more than 2/3) indicates that persistent clichés arise in public opinion, which university can be entered “without money”, and which “only with money or connections. Accordingly, entry strategies are built, the choice of a university is made, and ideas are formed about the availability or inaccessibility of higher education among various groups of the population. It is characteristic that the concept of accessibility is increasingly supplemented by the words "quality education". In this context, it is no longer significant that higher education has become accessible at all, but that certain segments of it have become even more inaccessible.

3. The role of the USE in the accessibility of higher education

Because of this, the unified state exam should and will be perceived extremely ambiguously in society. The idea of ​​the USE as a tool to fight corruption in entrance examinations or tutoring (which is far from the same thing) does not exhaust even a small fraction of the understanding (or misunderstanding) of this tool. When they say that the USE increases the accessibility of higher education, then in a situation where it has already become accessible, this statement is of little worth. The answer to the question of who exactly and what kind of education will become available as a result of the introduction of the USE becomes the most important. Obviously, a prestigious education will never be enough for everyone - that's why it is prestigious (which includes a certain restriction of access). It will also not be possible to create a mass good higher education in a short time (and in Russia the contingent of university students has grown 2.4 times over 15 years). The process of massization of higher education is going on in the country at an unprecedented pace (similar processes in the republics former USSR, as well as other countries with economies in transition, still did not acquire such a scope), and the quality of education in its traditional sense in these conditions will inevitably have to fall. Therefore, if earlier it was possible to talk about fixing a certain quality and expanding accessibility, now the achieved level of accessibility must be provided with at least some acceptable quality. Wherein given task given the limitations of both budgetary funds and the effective demand of the population, it cannot be solved simultaneously for the entire system of higher education. It would be more practical and honest to legalize the differentiation of universities, especially since in currently the fact that they differ in the quality of education is known to all. It is the explicit fixation of differences in the quality of the educational program that could become the basis for posing the problem of accessibility, since the question would no longer be raised about the accessibility of higher education in general, but in relation to a specific category of higher education institutions. But to legitimize the differentiation of universities in terms of prestige or the quality of the educational program (which, generally speaking, does not always coincide) means at the same time to legitimize the differences in their budgetary financing. They - these differences - exist at the present time, but they are informal (exclusive). Making them formal and clearly defined means, on the one hand, fixing some rules of the game, and, on the other hand, explicitly prescribing the responsibilities of those universities that are at the top. In other words, formalization will affect both the rights and responsibilities of the parties, but are the parties ready for this? big question. The idea of ​​GIFO - state nominal financial obligations - no matter how controversial it was in itself, this problem made it possible to fix this problem very clearly: many prestigious universities, to which all applicants would come, even with the highest GIFO category - the 1st category, would not receive those the budget they currently receive. And, besides, it could have happened that they would have come with lower categories of GIFO, which would have jeopardized the financial well-being of these universities.

At the same time, the lack of formalization of differences in the position of universities leads to the fact that teachers of even very prestigious educational institutions receive very small wages, and tutoring becomes almost an obligatory means for them to stay teaching at the university. Our calculations show that, on average, a tutor receives about 100-150 thousand rubles a year. or about 8-12 thousand rubles. per month. Considering that the budgetary salary of even a professor is on average 5.5 thousand rubles, we find that the tutoring “appendage” provides an income for a university teacher somewhat higher than the average salary in industry or the average salary in such an industry as non-ferrous metallurgy. Naturally, prices and incomes are highly differentiated in this sector.

If we look at the problem of the USE from these positions, then it will come out in a slightly different perspective. Already at the present time, in the course of the experiment on a single exam, an active redistribution of tutoring income towards the teaching corps has begun. In general, the rates for tutoring in those regions where the USE is held are starting to fall. At the same time, it can be expected that at the same time the prices for paid education in universities will begin to rise, otherwise, the problem of the staffing of universities, which is already quite acute, will become even more aggravated. It should be noted that tuition fees in state and municipal universities of the country are growing by 15-25% annually, while in non-state universities the rate of growth in tuition fees has begun to noticeably lag behind state ones.

The USE experiment revealed another regularity - the results of the unified exam depend quite strongly on the size of the school: the more students in the school, the higher, other things being equal, the higher GPA received by its graduates when passing the exam. IN Samara region only for schools with more than 500 students does the score obtained by graduates exceed the average score for the USE. This situation is easy to explain - a large school has both the best staff and the best educational base. It follows that with a full-scale transition to the Unified State Examination, first of all, graduates of large schools will have access to prestigious higher education. Since such schools are mainly concentrated in the city, the path to prestigious higher educational institutions will be less accessible for children from the village. The children of small and medium-sized towns again find themselves in an unenviable position. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to predict the impact on the quality of school education and the accessibility of high-quality higher education that the policy of school consolidation may have. However, without such a policy, in the current demographic situation, the number of schools will be reduced, and the learning outcomes may be very low. True, a decrease in the average USE score will again change the situation with access to higher education that will be considered high-quality.

Summary

In general, we can conclude that the problem of access to higher education in recent years has acquired new perspectives. On average, higher education has become much more accessible. But for a particular school graduate, this “on average” is not very important. For him, the accessibility of the university where he wants to enter is important. And it may well turn out that this university has not become more accessible to him. Therefore, the time has come not only to look for tools to increase the accessibility of higher education as such, but, finally, to move on to particulars and evaluate how many graduates, although they entered higher educational institutions, did not achieve their goal. In other words, we are talking not so much about the volume of higher education as about its structure, and if the volume is consistent, the structure, which is very noticeable, does not meet the needs and expectations of the population. It also does not meet the needs of the labor market, the employer. However, this is a topic for another conversation.

Literature

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Drogobytsky I.N. On the issue of predicting indicators of the development of the educational sphere / Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007.

Krasnozhenova G.F. Current state and prospects for the development of scientific and teaching staff of higher education. M., MGAPI, 2006.

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Radugin A.A., Radugin K.A. Sociology: a course of lectures. - M.: Center, 2008.

Sociology: Fundamentals of a General Theory / Edited by G.V. Osipova, L.N. Moskvichev. - M.: Aspect Press, 2006.

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In a market economy, the problems of accessibility of higher education are of particular importance, which are most relevant in countries focused on stable socio-economic growth and development, since it is within the framework of the higher education system that vocational education the intellectual potential of the country is created, competitiveness is ensured through the development and introduction of new high technology, and also due to the fact that in a market economy the state does not guarantee higher education for all citizens. The article defines the accessibility of higher education. Accessibility is considered as a socio-economic category, as it reflects the socio-economic relations regarding the production and sale educational services. Differences in the possibilities of obtaining higher education are revealed, on the basis of which a classification of the types of accessibility of higher education is made: “economic”, “territorial”, “social”, “intellectual and physical”, “academic”; which helps to determine the priorities for the development of the education system as a whole in the context of the country's innovative development. The factors of each of the types of accessibility of higher education, which have the greatest influence on the formation of intentions, desires and opportunities to receive higher education, are identified.

accessibility of higher education

types of accessibility

factors of higher education accessibility

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7. Roshchina Ya.M. Inequality in access to education: what do we know about it? // Problems of accessibility of higher education / otv. ed. Shishkin S.V. Independent Institute for Social Policy. – M.: “SIGNAL”, 2003. – P. 94–149.

Over the past decade, a number of structural changes have taken place in the system of higher professional education in Russia, which has led to the growth and strengthening of the following trends:

● increase in the total number of students;

● reduction in the number of higher educational institutions

● decrease in the value of education;

● discrepancy between acquired professional qualifications and labor market needs;

● declining role of higher education as a social lift.

These changes call into question the quality of higher education, as well as its accessibility. The problem of the accessibility of higher education is not new, but in recent years it has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers and developers of social policy both in Russia and abroad.

Therefore, the goal this study is to identify the types of accessibility of higher professional education and the factors that determine it.

The issues of higher education, in particular its accessibility, have been given much attention by both domestic and foreign scientists.

The problem of accessibility of higher education in modern conditions, as well as tools for assessing accessibility, were studied by the following researchers in their works: E.M. Avraamova, E.D. Voznesenskaya, N.V. Goncharova, L.D. Gudkov, M.A. Drugov, B.V. Dubin, O.Ya. Dymarskaya, D.L. Konstantinovsky, M.D. Krasilnikova,
A.G. Levinson, A.S. Leonova, E.L. Lukyanova, T.M. Maleva, V.G. Nemirovsky, E.L. Omelchenko, E.V. Petrova, Ya.M. Roshchina, O.I. Stuchevskaya, G.A. Cherednichenko, S.V. Shishkin and others.

Among foreign scientists, whose object of study was also higher education and the assessment of its accessibility, one can note such as L. Althuser, A. Asher, B. Bernstein, R. Bourdon, P. Bourdieu, D. Johnstone, R. Giraud, Zh -TO. Passeron, A. Servenan and others.

However, despite the relatively high degree of development of the topic and the presence a large number studies, there is no common understanding of the term accessibility of higher education and the factors affecting accessibility. After analyzing the work of researchers, it can be noted that there is no comprehensive approach to assessing accessibility factors, the problem is usually considered one-sidedly, without taking into account the influence of factors of different etymologies. In most cases, one can observe a combination of the concepts of accessibility of higher education and the possibility of obtaining higher education, when the accessibility of higher education is considered only from the standpoint of the material component. Note that this approach is very unproductive and does not allow a comprehensive analysis of existing problems.

The widespread understanding of the accessibility of higher education as an opportunity to enter a university and complete education in it becomes insufficient, since in reality it is not the presence of a diploma that becomes of paramount importance, but which university issued this diploma, and what knowledge and social connections the student received during training.

In this regard, the concept of "accessibility" should be interpreted as a socio-economic category. From this point of view, under the accessibility of higher education, we mean the availability of the main structural elements of higher professional education, namely, higher educational institutions that provide services High Quality, regardless of their organizational and legal forms, types and types, implementing educational programs and state educational standards of various levels and orientations, for the bulk of the population, regardless of social economic factors, as well as the availability of entrance exams, educational programs and educational standards from an intellectual position for the bulk of the population.

Thus, the accessibility of higher education in this paper is considered from the position of a socio-economic category as an opportunity to choose a higher education. educational institution, enrollment and successful learning in it in various social groups of the population.

The main types of accessibility of higher education and the factors that determine it are presented in the table.

First of all, it is worth noting a group of economic factors. These include the level of family income, higher education fees (direct tuition fees, tuition fees), as well as the associated costs of higher education, and the costs of increasing human capital. That is, in this case, the payment for education is understood as the entire set of expenses that the student's family bears. It takes into account the costs necessary to cover direct costs - payment for school, training, education at the university, and opportunity costs - the maintenance of the child during education. When examining these factors, attention should also be paid to such indicators as the number budget places in universities, the number of places in hostels, the availability and size of scholarships, the availability of programs, benefits for various groups of the population. It is necessary to take into account the relationship between individual indicators. That is, for example, an indicator in the form of the ratio of the number of places in universities to the number of potential students will be more informative than the same data considered separately. The ratio of state and non-state universities also affects the accessibility of higher education.

Also, the territorial factor, in particular the place of residence of the family, has a considerable influence. Rural residents have fewer opportunities for higher education and are less competitive in entrance exams than city dwellers. To a greater extent, this is justified by the higher costs incurred by families that are the most distant from the location of the university where the student is (will be) studying. Exploring this group of factors, one should pay attention to such an indicator as the number of universities in a certain territory.

A group of social factors also influences. These include the status of the family, the socio-cultural capital of the family, in particular the level of education, the qualifications of the parents of potential students. Such indicators as the number of children in a family, a complete family or an incomplete one, etc. are also important. A potential student's admission to a university is influenced by the very social environment of a given person.

Factors and types of higher education accessibility*

	Economic availability	Territorial accessibility	Social availability	intellectual and physical availability	academic availability
Factors of accessibility of higher education	family income, family economic well-being, savings	region of residence	nationality, gender, religion, values, norms, cultural differences, family composition	physical, mental, mental state (health)	type of educational institution, quality of education at the previous levels of education, volume and quality of additional educational services received
	payment (cost) of education, expenses for higher education	settlement size	education, occupation, qualifications of parents and other family members	inherited traits	awareness of training opportunities in various specialties at various universities
	the relationship between the amount of spending on education and the average per capita family income	level of urbanization	relationships with parents, relatives and friends	own human capital of a potential student (level of intellectual and physical abilities)	the availability of benefits, advantages when entering a university
	share of support in education spending	number of universities in the region	social status and level of adaptation to life	received knowledge	form of education (daytime, part-time, evening) at the university
	home library size		the level of "social justice" in society	personal motivation for higher education	university infrastructure (presence/absence of dormitories, their size, etc.)

Attention should also be paid to the personal characteristics of a potential student, which undoubtedly affect the degree of accessibility of higher education for a person. These include such characteristics as the level of health, religion, gender, nationality, values, norms, etc. This list also includes the intellectual level of a potential student. And it directly depends on the quality of the acquired knowledge and the level of teaching at school. These indicators are also related to the abilities and diligence of schoolchildren.

It is imperative to take into account that there is a correlation between many of the above factors. For example, if a potential student lives far from the university, in a rural area (a factor of territorial accessibility), and there is no place in a hostel (one of the factors of academic accessibility), then it will be necessary to rent an apartment (associated costs, a factor of economic accessibility). Which ultimately will exacerbate and intensify the problem of accessibility of higher education for this category of students or students in a similar situation to an even greater extent.

Thus, the degree of accessibility of higher education can differ significantly depending on the influencing factors, many of which are closely related and can reinforce each other (both positively and negatively) or, conversely, smooth out this influence.

Thus, the factors affecting the accessibility of higher education are:

● economic (family income, economic well-being, the amount of savings, the cost of studying at a university, the number of state-funded places, the share of support in education costs, etc.);

● territorial (place of residence, level of urbanization, number of universities in a certain territory, etc.);

● social (social and cultural capital of the family, family status, level of education of parents, social environment, number of children in the family, etc.);

● intellectual and physical (personal characteristics of a potential student, in particular the level of his physical and intellectual abilities, his own human capital, etc.);

● academic (the ratio of the number of places in universities to the number of potential students, the quality of the knowledge gained at previous levels of education, the form of education at the university, etc.).

In general, if we take each of the above factors separately, then none of them is predetermining in the formation of the intention or desire to get higher education, but in combination they give a total effect that determines motivation and, most importantly, the practice of accumulating opportunities for entering university

The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation within the framework of the research project of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation (Ensuring the availability of higher education and improving its quality in the context of innovative transformations in Russia), project No. 14-32-01043a1.

Reviewers:

Nekhoroshev Yu.S., Doctor of Economics, Professor, Consulting Professor of the Department of Economics, National Research Tomsk politechnical University, Tomsk;

Kazakov V.V., Doctor of Economics, Professor of the Department of Finance and Accounting, National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk.

The work was received by the editors on December 10, 2014.

Bibliographic link

Anikina E.A., Lazarchuk E.V., Chechina V.I. ACCESSIBILITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AS A SOCIO-ECONOMIC CATEGORY // Basic Research. - 2014. - No. 12-2. – P. 355-358;
URL: http://fundamental-research.ru/ru/article/view?id=36232 (date of access: 03/26/2020). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"

The consequences of all the above processes for the accessibility of education to the citizens of the country are ambiguous. If we consider the aggregate quantitative indicators of the development of the higher education system in Russia, then they indicate an increase in the accessibility of vocational education. Thus, the number of university students has doubled over the past ten years, while the number of persons aged 15 to 24 has grown by only 12%. State statistics on the number of 11th grade graduates and university enrollment have been converging in recent years: in 2000, graduation amounted to 1.5 million schoolchildren, enrollment - 1.3 million students. Russian legislation establishes that at least 170 students per 10,000 population should study free of charge. In fact, in 2000, 193 students per 10,000 people were educated at the expense of budgetary funds.
However, changes in the accessibility of higher education appear in a very different light when changes in the structure of education funding and in the quality of educational services provided are taken into account. The growth in the total number of students was ensured mainly due to the expansion of paid admission. For admission to universities for free places, the parents of many applicants have to make informal payments. All this casts doubt on the conclusion about increasing the accessibility of higher education.
The growth in non-government spending on education, although very significant, did not fully compensate for the reduction in public funding. This gives grounds for concluding that the quality of educational services has generally been declining. The dynamics of indicators of the development of the education system in Russia over the past decade and numerous observational data indicate an increase in the differentiation of higher education services in terms of their quality. Thus, significant changes have taken place in the ratio of full-time, evening and correspondence courses. The fastest growing number of students using part-time education, especially in non-state universities, where admission to correspondence departments in 2000, it exceeded admission to full-time departments. Correspondence education is becoming increasingly important, its expansion is natural due to the relevance of the task of continuous education; but one cannot but admit that at present the domestic correspondence education, as a rule, is inferior in quality to full-time. Meanwhile, by in absentia about 40% of students are now studying (in the early 90s - about a quarter).
Two subsystems have formed in the Russian system of higher education: one is elite education, characterized by a high quality of services provided, and the other is mass higher education of low quality. Higher education of poor quality can, with some assumptions, be called relatively affordable. Opportunities for obtaining an education that provides high quality vocational training future professionals appear to have dwindled for much of the population.
Differences in the accessibility of higher education are determined by differences between people in a number of characteristics, including:
- ability level;
- the quality of the received general education;
- the volume and quality of additional educational services received (additional subjects in schools, university preparation courses, tutoring services, etc.);
- the level of awareness about the possibilities of training in various specialties in various universities;
- physical abilities(for example, the presence of a disability that does not affect the ability to assimilate knowledge, but limits the ability to participate in the educational process);
- composition of the family, level of education and social capital of its members;
- economic well-being of the family (level of income, etc.);
- location;
- other factors.
Available studies show that the factors of socio-economic differentiation very significantly limit the accessibility of universities for the general population, especially universities that provide high-quality educational services. At the same time, the greatest limitations arise due to differences in:
1) the level of household income: members of low-income families have the worst opportunities to enter universities;
2) place of residence: residents of rural areas and small towns, as well as residents of depressed regions, are in the worst situation; the accessibility of higher education is also affected by the differentiation of regions in terms of the availability of universities;
3) the level of general secondary education received: there is a differentiation of schools in terms of the quality of education, while the decrease in the level of training in some is combined with the presence of a limited number of “elite” schools, the quality of training of graduates of which is growing.
The level of family income affects the accessibility of higher education both directly, by determining the possibilities of paying for the actual education, and indirectly. Indirect influence is connected, firstly, with the possibility of implementing, in addition to the actual costs of education, the cost of travel to the place of study for non-residents, the cost of supporting the life of a student during training - the cost of housing, meals, etc. For the majority of families living in rural areas and cities that do not have their own universities, the expenses for the applicant's travel to the location of the university and for living in another city are unaffordable. Secondly, this influence is expressed in the relationship between the level of family well-being and social and human capital, which are inherited and act as factors of differentiation in access to higher education.
The following categories of persons can be classified as socially disadvantaged in the opportunities to receive quality education:
- graduates of rural schools;
- graduates of “weak” schools in different settlements;
- residents of remote areas settlements and regions;
- residents of regions with poor educational infrastructure;
- residents of depressed regions;
- members of poor families;
- members of incomplete families;
- members of socially disadvantaged families;
- homeless children;
- graduates of orphanages.
- disabled people;
- migrants;
- representatives of national and religious minorities.

Introduction

Education is the process of mastering the Images of the world and oneself in it, i.e. education should also include an educational function. Upbringing contributes to the formation of personality, and education - to the development of personality. Today, upbringing and education are given in different places.

The unemployed in our country are mostly women and men with a fairly high level of education. Often these are former employees of scientific and design institutions, office workers, engineers and designers of enterprises of the military-industrial complex. During the Soviet period, city organizations accumulated an excess of workers of this profile.

The discrepancy between the acquired professions and the demands of the labor market, the need to subsequently change the profile of specialization (about 1/2 of all types of professions for which training is carried out in educational institutions are not required in the labor market; in this regard, up to 50% of young specialists are retrained without starting work according to the profession mastered in an educational institution) and, as a result, low interest in the quality of the education received.

Object: students receiving (received) education in educational institutions

Subject: factors affecting students' education

Purpose: to analyze the dynamics of the level of education of students.

Objectives: First, to identify problems of higher education accessibility. Secondly, to determine the percentage of people with higher education in specific situations. Thirdly, to determine the growth dynamics of students receiving higher education.

Defining problems of higher education accessibility

“In the aspect of the study of value orientations, special attention is paid to the value of “education”.

Speaking about education, it should be noted that today there are several specific promising trends in the development of a modern university:

1. The attitude of students and their parents towards university education is becoming more and more consumerist. Great importance acquire such components of choosing a university as a well-known brand, a beautiful and compelling catalogue, good advertising, a modern website, and so on. In addition, and perhaps in the first place, the principle of "price-quality" turns into a leading one in determining a higher educational institution for future students and their parents. The university should be a mega market for knowledge consumption, with all the ensuing consequences.

2. For the majority of students, university education has lost the characteristic of "fatefulness". Education at the university is just an episode in their life, unfolding along with other, no less important episodes: parallel work, personal life And so on.

3. The university should be at the forefront of the technical and technological process, offering students the latest achievements in the organization educational process and student life.

4. Gradual university education is included in the process of virtualization, i.e. programs are gaining more and more weight distance education, teleconferences, education through the Internet - sites and more. For any student, a university and a teacher should be promptly available” Pokrovsky, N. E. A by-product of globalization: universities in the face of radical changes [Text] / N. E. Pokrovsky // ONS - 2005. - No. 4. - S. 148-154 ..

However, over the past 15-20 years in the system Russian education many problems have accumulated that threaten the preservation of the high educational potential of the nation.

One of the serious negative trends in the Russian education system has been the strengthening of social differentiation in terms of the degree of accessibility of different levels of education, as well as the level and quality of the education received. Interregional differentiation continues to grow, between urban and countryside, as well as the differentiation of opportunities for obtaining high-quality education for children from families with different levels income.

“There is a problem of accessibility of higher education for people with disabilities, associated with the reform of the education system and social policy in relation to people with disabilities.

Despite the current federal legislation that guarantees benefits for applicants with disabilities, a number of factors make it difficult for people with disabilities to enter a university. Most universities in Russia are not provided with even the minimum conditions necessary for teaching disabled people in them. Higher education institutions do not have the opportunity to reconstruct their premises according to the principles of universal design from their own budgetary funds.

Currently, applicants with disabilities have two alternatives. The first is to enroll in a higher education institution at the place of residence, where there is hardly an adapted barrier environment, where teachers are hardly prepared to work with disabled people. And the second is to go to another region where such an environment exists. But then another problem arises related to the fact that a disabled person who came from another region must “bring with him” the financing of his rehabilitation program, which is difficult due to the mismatch of departments” Yarskaya-Smirnova, E. R. The problem of accessibility of higher education for disabled people [Text] / E. R. Yarskaya-Smirnova, P. V. Romanov // Sotsis. - 2005. - No. 10. - S. 48-55 ..

Within the boundaries of the common European educational space, students and teachers will be able to freely move from university to university, and the received document on education will be recognized throughout Europe, which will significantly expand the labor market for everyone.

In this regard, complex organizational transformations are ahead in the field of Russian higher education: the transition to a multi-level system of personnel training; the introduction of credit units, the required number of which a student must collect to obtain a qualification; practical implementation of the mobility of students, teachers, researchers, etc.

Any education is humanitarian problem. Education, of course, means awareness and professional competence, and characterizes the personal qualities of a person as a subject of the historical process and individual life.

At present, there is a trend towards the commercialization of higher education, towards the transformation of universities into commercial enterprises. Relations between a teacher and a student are becoming more and more of a market nature: the teacher sells his services - the student buys them or orders new ones if the proposed ones do not satisfy him. The disciplines taught are reoriented to the immediate needs of the market, as a result of which there is a “decrease” in the importance of systemic fundamentality. There is a reduction in the share of courses fundamental sciences, which give way to the so-called "useful knowledge", that is, applied knowledge, primarily to numerous special courses, sometimes esoteric.

As a legacy from the Soviet era, Rossi inherited free higher professional education, one of the main principles of which was the competitive selection of university applicants. But there was and especially reveals itself in modern conditions, along with the official, a completely different practice of selecting applicants for higher education. It is based, on the one hand, on the social ties of applicants' families, on social capital, on the other hand, on the basis of monetary relations, in other words, on the purchase of the necessary results of competitive selection, regardless of the actual level of preparation of applicants and their intellectual development. Not those who are better prepared and think better, but those for whom the parents were able to pay the necessary amount of money, go to study.

The university is both intellectual and information Center for local civil society institutions, as well as a forge of leadership qualities for them. graduate School, primarily universities, can play a key role in the deep evolutionary transformation of regions, the country as a whole, in the formation and development of civil society in it. This requires the formation of interest both in university structures and in the student environment.

“The first paid places in public universities appeared in 1992. Demand for paid services higher education began to take shape from that time, i.e. even before the opening of the first non-state universities (1995) In 2001 - 2002. 65% of the respondents considered paid education more prestigious, and among the group of “payers” this opinion was expressed by 75% of respondents” Ivakhnenko, G. A. Dynamics of students’ opinions on the modernization of higher education [Text] / G. A. Ivakhnenko // Sotsis. - 2007. - No. 11. - S. 99 .. In 2006-2007. the total number of students who deny the greater prestige of commercial education compared to education at state universities increased to 87%, and the share of those who hold the same opinion among the "payers" was 90%. Among the reasons why one or another system of education is chosen, the main ones are still the ease of admission and the desire to reduce the risk of failing exams to zero (more than 90% both in 2001-2002 and in 2006-2007) . Other reasons - the level of training of teachers, the best technical equipment of universities - do not have a significant impact on the selection process. When studying the attitude of students towards paid education, it is important to consider what their ability to pay for education is.

Also, based on the study of Tyuryukanov E.V. and Ledeneva L.I., it can be noted that now the prestige of higher education is high both in general among the population of migrants surveyed by them, and in each individual region. At the same time, in general, migrant families are distinguished by limited adaptation resources: both material, and information, communication and social. They are torn out of their usual life context and have limited access to social services and cultural values. Successful integration of migrants into Russian society, their transformation into an organic part of the population of Russia will, in particular, contribute to the implementation of the educational orientations of their children

The problems of access to education are of concern to almost all Russian society. These problems are discussed not only by scientists and officials from the education system, but also by teachers and parents. The reason is that education is increasingly seen by both the population and the governments of most countries in the world as an important economic resource providing successful self-realization, social mobility and material well-being of an individual in modern world. At the same time, the requirements that were and are being made to those who want to get an education are not always the same, which creates the problem of inequality, primarily related to the accessibility of education and its quality for people of different socio-economic status, nationality, gender, physical abilities, etc. The principle of equal opportunity in education is to give everyone, regardless of background, the opportunity to reach the level that best suits their potential. The lack of equal access to education actually means the perpetuation of economic, social and cultural inequality, blocking the way for children from the lower layers to the upper ones. There are several concepts of unequal access to education. This is a legal inequality, which is seen as an inequality of rights enshrined in law and socio-economic inequality, due to the socio-economic characteristics of different groups of the population.

For Russia, experts note discrepancies between the proclaimed goals and real facts, indicating the inability of the education system to meet these goals. The formation of the economy new Russia was accompanied by a sharp and significant reduction in public spending on education. This led to the degradation of institutions at all levels of education. The deterioration of the material and technical base and human resources had a negative impact on the accessibility and quality of education.

The Russian education system does not provide social mobility of the population, there are no conditions for an “equal start”, quality education Today, it is virtually inaccessible without connections and/or money; there is no system of social (grant) support for students from low-income families. The introduction of market relations into the sphere of education causes a growing degree of inequality among educational institutions, primarily higher education. Political and social changes, the development of democracy create favorable conditions for reforms, including in the field of education, but these same changes cause an increase in corruption, crime and other negative consequences.

The development of the non-state sector in the field of education and the official provision of paid educational services (including the use of paid forms of education in state educational institutions) in the context of ensuring equality and accessibility is ambiguous. Paid educational services in 2006 were provided to the population for 189.6 billion rubles, or 10.4% more than in 2005. On the one hand, the development of a system of paid educational services expands access to vocational education through the introduction of paid vocational education, which has brought Russia to one of the leading places in the world in terms of the relative number of students in higher educational institutions. But on the other hand, paid education reduces its accessibility to the poor.

In the context of the constant underfunding of the education system and the growth of its payment, the incomes and disposable resources of parents are a significant factor affecting the accessibility of education for children from different social strata of the population. The subjective side of the accessibility problem is that almost all social groups sure that education has become paid.