Стратегии ценообразования российских государственных вузов

Университетское управление: практика и анализ. 2022. Т. 26. № 4. С. 84–98.

Dmitrienko A.

The paper analyzes the pricing strategies of Russian public universities for bachelor and specialist programs. The analysis is carried out by studying the ratio coefficients of the tuition fees and the funding standards for budget students. Using Monitoring of enrollment quality at Russian universities 2016–2019 and Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education data it is shown that Russian universities use three types of pricing strategies in connection with attracting a certain contingent of fee-paying students. The first strategy is typical for the leaders of the Russian higher education market: tuition fee is significantly higher than the funding standards for budget students, while the university's market niche allows to consistently enroll fee-paying students with a high level of training. The second strategy is used by universities that are able to enroll the required number of fee-paying students with a good level of training on a competitive basis and have advantages at the local and interregional levels: tuition fee is approximately at the level of the funding standards. The third strategy is used by non-selective universities, where the quality of the education allows to enroll fee-paying students only using tuition fees that are significantly below the level of funding standards. The results of the analysis show that competitive universities with a higher level of financial capacity set tuition fees that exceed the funding standards to a greater extent. At the same time, universities with weak financial capacity and difficulties in fee-paying enrollment are prone to price dumping in violation of regulatory requirements.

Keywords: образовательная политика, финансирование высшего образования, education policy, Управление высшим образованием, higher education funding, экономика высшего образования, economics of higher education, higher education administration, pricing policy in universities, политика ценообразования в вузах

Publication based on the results of: Higher education market agents in the digitalization context: data as a basis for analyzing incentives and strategies (2022)