How to get to a university on a budgetary: new rules for enrolling students come into force

We were also interested in how many years students will now study after the abandonment of the Bologna system.

Irina Mishina

The Ministry of Education and Science has completed the distribution of enrollment targets for universities for the 2022/23 academic year. More than 588 thousand state-funded places have been allocated to universities. This was stated by the Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov. More than 73% of budget places will be directed to the regions. In 2022, the largest number of budget places will go to engineering, technical specialties and information technology. Also in the "vanguard" - pedagogy, medicine and agriculture. The minister announced the figures: more than 251,000 places have been allocated for future engineers, more than 75,000 places have been allocated for the pedagogical direction, and more than 53,000 places for future doctors. Experts also talk about the demand for chemists, biologists, and mathematicians.

Budget places - at the request of employers

Who will receive the largest number of budget places and on what basis will this distribution take place? The Ministry of Education and Science this year allocates places according to a new method. First, the department calculates the overall admission targets for groups of specialties and areas, taking into account the needs of the regions. Then the proposals are made by the so-called "responsibility centers": sectoral ministries, the state corporations Roskosmos, Rosatom, and the universities themselves. After the regions determine their volumes, everything comes together.

“The distribution of budget places will take place by regions, in stages, depending on the needs, after agreeing with the opinion of the governor and the development strategy of the region. The Ministry of Labor will also participate in this and make recommendations on the demand for priority specialties. There will also be coordination with the so-called "Responsibility Centers" - large corporations, ”said Irina Abankina , professor, director of the Institute for the Development of Education of the National Research University Higher School of Economics , candidate of economic sciences .

A natural question arises: why do so many state-funded places go to regional universities? After all, educational institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg are traditionally in demand.

“In recent years, there has been a trend: most of the “high-grade students” enter regions with a positive balance of migration, that is, after graduating from universities, the majority of children remain in the city where they studied, and a minority leaves for their homeland. These are Moscow, Petersburg, Tatarstan, Rostov region, Novosibirsk. As a rule, graduates from other universities leave. Because of this, in many regions there is a shortage of personnel. Now there is a desire to saturate the regions with personnel. Each will develop quite specific specialties in which there is a need. For example, in Kazan, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Rostov-on-Don, emphasis is placed on training specialists in the field of transport. Moreover, the emphasis is on the training of specialists in the field of reconstruction and repair of aviation, the admission numbers for these specialties have been increased. As for the training of pilots, the figures are not so high”, - explained Irina Abankina , director of the Institute for Education Development of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

The three regional universities with the largest increase in state-funded places were Ural Federal University. Yeltsin - plus 1,767 budget places; Voronezh State Forest Engineering University - additional 385 state-funded places; Sevastopol State University with an additional 359 state-funded places (more than 2.5 thousand places in total). Kazan Federal University (+346 places) and Orenburg State University (+318 places) are also in the TOP universities with the largest number of state-funded places.

Among the leading regions that received the largest number of state-funded places, excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg, Tatarstan occupies the first place, where more than 21 thousand state-funded places are distributed in favor of local universities; in second place is the Sverdlovsk region: there are 19,699 places, in third place is the Rostov region with a total of 19 thousand state-funded places. The top five also included the Novosibirsk region: 15,803 applicants will be able to apply for the budget there, as well as Bashkiria, which received 13,602 budget places. Karachay-Cherkessia, Murmansk and Pskov regions occupy the leading positions in terms of the increase in places in universities.

What specialties are most likely to get on the budget

According to the Ministry of Education and Science, in 2022 the largest number of budget places will go to engineering and technical specialties (including information technology). We decided to clarify in the leading universities of the country how things are with state-funded places in these areas. In the selection committee of the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman, we were told that they do not have such information today. They also did not provide data to RUDN University today. At the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics (VMK) of Moscow State University, they explained to us that the number of state-funded places is traditional and unchanged.

“For many years, everything has been going according to the pattern at the faculty of the VMK. 340 budget places for the undergraduate program, 300 budget places for the master's program. A lot of bachelors enter the master's program, plus extra from outside. In connection with the abandonment of the Bologna system, no one knows what will happen next. How many budget places there will be now, no one knows either. At the same time, some directions are reduced. For example, the Applied Mathematics and Informatics (PMI) direction has been deleted from the list of specialist programs, and enrollment in this direction will stop from 2024. I must say that PMI is the most demanded area for the IT industry, it is implemented by at least 70 of the best universities in the country”, - Vladimir Sukhomlin, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Open Information Technologies at the Faculty of CMC MSU, told NI.

At the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, we were informed that today there are no documents confirming that the number of budget places has been increased.

“Traditionally, there are 380 state-funded places at the Faculty of Physics, the number of extra-budgetary places is negligible: only 20. The number of state-funded places, depending on the needs of the faculty, helps to form the Federal Methodological Association. As a rule, the application of Moscow State University for the number of state-funded places is 100% satisfied, peripheral universities often do not receive as many state-funded places as they want. In general, universities have a license for each specialty. The university cannot take more than it has specialties, it can only reduce commercial places and, at this expense, increase the number of state-funded ones. In general, there are many extrabudgetary specialties at Moscow State University, mainly in new specialties such as public administration, art history, management”, - Andrei Larichev, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University, told NI.

As for the Higher School of Economics, as Irina Abankina, director of the institute for the development of education at this university, explained to us, mostly state-funded places will go to the regions, and not to the country's leading universities, in order to straighten out the economic situation there. “The number of state-funded places at the HSE this year is largely unchanged. Out of competition, according to a special quota, children of military personnel, children of participants in a special operation, and representatives of the LPR and DPR will enter, ”explained Irina Abankina.

How many years to study now?

In connection with the financing of higher education, a logical question arises: how many years will students study after the rejection of the Bologna system - 4 years as with a bachelor's degree, 5 years as with the USSR, or 6 as with admission to a master's program after a bachelor's degree? We sent a corresponding request to the Ministry of Education and Science to Deputy Minister Dmitry Afanasyev, but at the time of publication we have not received a response. At the same time, the position of the deputy minister is well known: he is for a flexible approach to this issue. “Now there is a law that sets the time of study: 4 years for a bachelor's program, 2 years for a master's program, 5 years for a specialist's program. To change something, it is necessary to change the Law on Education 273-FZ. But before changing the law, there must be a rationale", - Irina Abankina, director of the Institute for the Development of Education at the Higher School of Economics, explained to NI. As far as I know, Deputy Minister of Science and Education Dmitry Afanasiev speaks in favor of a flexible system. Everywhere is likely to be different, depending on the different programs. For example, I know master's programs that are designed for six months. In the US, for example, a bachelor's degree is measured in 40 credits, not years of study. In Vietnam, too, everything is different: builders study for 5 years, engineers for 6, doctors for 7, managers for 3 years. As a result, in this country they completely refused the help of foreign specialists, having trained their personnel,” Irina Abankina explained.

“At the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, training as a specialist is 5 and a half years. In aggregate and in terms of budgetary costs, this corresponds to studying at a bachelor's degree + master's degree. Five and a half years is enough. True, recently, in the 1st year for physicists, an additional subject was introduced - the Russian language. When, after the abandonment of the Bologna system, a specialist is approved, it will automatically be clear how many years the training will last. That is, a specialist program will be determined, for this there will be a state task and, accordingly, the allocation of budget money”, - explained Andrey Larichev, associate professor of the Physics Department of Moscow State University, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

“At all faculties at Moscow State University, the number of years of study is different. For example, at the Mekhmat there are 6 years of specialization. But there, according to some feedback from students, they are not fully loaded during the last year of study. At the faculty of CMC, for example, in the direction of "Fundamental Informatics and Information Technologies" (FIIT), the most preferred model of education (I speak as the author of this direction) is 4 +2 years. This is also confirmed by the fact that recently a whole range of new complex areas in the field of information technology has appeared, which means that we can talk about new areas in IT, and this can only be taught in a master's program. In general, I created a master's program at the faculty, but now they can cancel everything created”, - Vladimir Sukhomlin, doctor of technical sciences, professor, teacher at the faculty of the CMC of Moscow State University, told NI.

Obviously, there will no longer be a clear figure, as in the USSR, when students studied for 5 years. Everything will depend on the formed curricula in the specialty, and not only each university, but also each faculty will have its own duration of study.

Post scriptum.

Many are concerned about the question: will our graduates be able to work abroad after abandoning the Bologna system? It turns out they can, and it's pretty easy to do. “In my opinion, if the Bologna system is abandoned, the European Diploma Supplement should be left for those who would like to work or study abroad. In past years, such an appendix to a diploma with a list of disciplines passed and an indication of the specialty received was enough to work abroad”, - MSU Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences Vladimir Sukhomlin explained to NI.