The transformations of higher education in 15 post-Soviet countries: the state, the market and institutional diversification

Higher Education Policy. 2022. Vol. 36. No. 2. P. 370–393.

Smolentseva A., Platonova D.

Soviet higher education had a distinctive institutional landscape. It combined
two institutional types in a uniform model that embedded higher education in the
national economy. This paper focuses on the post-Soviet system-level changes in the
institutional landscape in all 15 countries of the former USSR. It shows that over
last three decades the Soviet two-type institutional model evolved into a three-type
model, with the specialized university as a new institutional type. Highlighting the
instruments of horizontal and vertical differentiation for each country, the paper
explains how structural reforms and market forces led to the rise of the university/
multiversity form of institution, and the strengthening of vertical stratification at
system level. The comparative analysis shows that there have been different patterns
of transformation in the 15 countries, shaped by unique combinations of structural
reforms and marketization policies, with certain countries having made more distinctive
steps away from the Soviet institutional model. There are now 15 formally
different systems of higher education which poses further questions for comparative
analysis.

Keywords: образовательная политика, высшее образование, структурные реформы, постсоветские страны, structural reforms, higher education policy, институциональное многообразие, institutional diversity, институциональный ландшафт, institutional landscape, Marketization of higher education, post-Soviet higher education, маркетизация высшего образования

Publication based on the results of: Differentiation of Universities by Efficiency and Performance and the structure of their Contribution to the Public Good (2021)