Society
The Days Are Numbered for Private Education in Russia
June 5, 2025
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Sergey Chernyshov
Historian, researcher at Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Historian Sergey Chernyshov looks at the Russian government’s ambitions and recent moves to increase control of higher education. In particular, a bill currently in the Duma would force institutions to limit and allocate the number of tuition-paying spots, while a new law has effectively destroyed a fifth of the private continuing education industry.
The original text in Russian was published in the Moscow Times and is being republished here with the author’s permission.
In the first reading, the Duma has passed a bill regulating enrollment for tuition-paying students at all higher education institutions (HEIs) in Russia, both public and private. You can be sure the bill, unchanged, will reach the president’s desk, since it was Putin who ordered it in the first place, with a report on implementation due by December 1.
In the first reading, the Duma has passed a bill regulating enrollment for tuition-paying students at all higher education institutions (HEIs) in Russia, both public and private. You can be sure the bill, unchanged, will reach the president’s desk, since it was Putin who ordered it in the first place, with a report on implementation due by December 1.
MGU students in front of the main university building with the banner of the Acheiropoieton. May 2023. Source: VK
From competition to allocative oligarchy
The bill is to come into effect on September 1, 2026, meaning the next admissions cycle to HEIs will be the last one in Russia with open competition, which will be replaced by rigid government regulation.
Legislators say they are worried about the quality of education and claim the country does not need so many lawyers and economists, 90% of whom actually study on a tuition-paying basis. Maybe it does not.
But if someone wants, with their money, to buy something that is not prohibited by law – say, an education in the field of management – they are not obliged to think about what the country needs and what it does not.
Formally, some competition is to be maintained: HEIs will state their intentions and compete for quotas, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education will allocate spots. Strictly based on the submitted documents, of course.
But this is theory. In practice, it is well known how publicly funded spots at HEIs are allocated today – through corruption and depending on proximity to the right person. Under the new system for tuition-paying students, the free market in the sphere of higher education will turn into an allocative oligarchy. Prospering in it will not be the best students, but those with the best connections.
‘Taking into account the needs of the state’
In April, the Duma passed another bill according to which, starting from September 1, advanced training and retraining of schoolteachers may be carried out only in organizations owned by the state or municipalities.
To blow up the entire private continuing education sector like this, Article 3 of the Law on Education, i.e., the very foundation of education regulation in Russia, had to be changed.
The bill is to come into effect on September 1, 2026, meaning the next admissions cycle to HEIs will be the last one in Russia with open competition, which will be replaced by rigid government regulation.
Legislators say they are worried about the quality of education and claim the country does not need so many lawyers and economists, 90% of whom actually study on a tuition-paying basis. Maybe it does not.
But if someone wants, with their money, to buy something that is not prohibited by law – say, an education in the field of management – they are not obliged to think about what the country needs and what it does not.
Formally, some competition is to be maintained: HEIs will state their intentions and compete for quotas, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education will allocate spots. Strictly based on the submitted documents, of course.
But this is theory. In practice, it is well known how publicly funded spots at HEIs are allocated today – through corruption and depending on proximity to the right person. Under the new system for tuition-paying students, the free market in the sphere of higher education will turn into an allocative oligarchy. Prospering in it will not be the best students, but those with the best connections.
‘Taking into account the needs of the state’
In April, the Duma passed another bill according to which, starting from September 1, advanced training and retraining of schoolteachers may be carried out only in organizations owned by the state or municipalities.
To blow up the entire private continuing education sector like this, Article 3 of the Law on Education, i.e., the very foundation of education regulation in Russia, had to be changed.
“Now, the law speaks not of the ‘inadmissibility of limiting or eliminating competition in the field of education’, but of ‘support for various forms of education, taking into account the interests and needs of the individual, as well as the needs of the state and society’.”
Tver State University Faculty of Law. 2025. Source: VK
Teachers were a profitable client for private continuing education institutions. About 400,000 (about 20% of all teachers in the country) used their services, which are seen as convenient, fast and flexible. Not always of the highest quality – but certainly no worse than state institutions for advanced training, where the syllabus has not changed in 30-40 years.
Teachers make up the largest segment of private continuing education in Russia, at about 19.0% of the market. For comparison, healthcare workers rank second at 8.5%.
Private schools, get ready
Another sphere that could be blown up by amending one or two lines in the Law on Education is private schools. Officially, there are about 800 in Russia, attended by about 120,000 children. This is only about 0.8% of the total number of schoolchildren, which pales in comparison to the shares, for example, in Spain (29%) and France (25%).
But in reality, there are many more private schools, since those that have opened in the last 3-5 years are operating without a license and are not reflected in official statistics, with their students formally listed as either homeschooled or enrolled in other schools (including ones).
Most of the 60,000 children listed as homeschooled actually study in unregistered private schools. We might assume there is a similar number of private school students hidden in the municipality-level data.
Overall, more than half of the private school market can be eliminated by simply abolishing home schooling. Or by tightening the requirements for official private schools, like, as Belarus mandated in 2022, mandatory ownership of their own stadium.
Incidentally, in Belarus this was done literally in a week, after a girl at a private school was injured when her eyeglasses were broken in an accident. Over the next month, two thirds of all private schools in the country were closed as noncompliant with the new requirements.
I have almost no doubt the same will be done in Russia.
What will the cost be for Russian education?
Given the new laws mentioned above, along with the obvious beginning of a campaign to discredit private colleges in Moscow and the general trends in society, real private education in Russia has at most a few years left. Though formally private schools, colleges and universities will, of course, continue to exist, they will need to either constantly repent and apologize or join some state-oligarchic clan.
The main question is: will the current Russian education system lose anything from the liquidation of real, independent private institutions? I dare say it will not. Because there is no need for nongovernmental structures to exist if they cannot offer society meanings and values that are fundamentally different from those of the state. The average private school or private HEI today differs little from state institutions in terms of environment, content and values.
The fundamental reason for the existence of private education in Russia went out the window when its core decided to show even greater loyalty toward all government decisions than public-education peers do.
Teachers make up the largest segment of private continuing education in Russia, at about 19.0% of the market. For comparison, healthcare workers rank second at 8.5%.
Private schools, get ready
Another sphere that could be blown up by amending one or two lines in the Law on Education is private schools. Officially, there are about 800 in Russia, attended by about 120,000 children. This is only about 0.8% of the total number of schoolchildren, which pales in comparison to the shares, for example, in Spain (29%) and France (25%).
But in reality, there are many more private schools, since those that have opened in the last 3-5 years are operating without a license and are not reflected in official statistics, with their students formally listed as either homeschooled or enrolled in other schools (including ones).
Most of the 60,000 children listed as homeschooled actually study in unregistered private schools. We might assume there is a similar number of private school students hidden in the municipality-level data.
Overall, more than half of the private school market can be eliminated by simply abolishing home schooling. Or by tightening the requirements for official private schools, like, as Belarus mandated in 2022, mandatory ownership of their own stadium.
Incidentally, in Belarus this was done literally in a week, after a girl at a private school was injured when her eyeglasses were broken in an accident. Over the next month, two thirds of all private schools in the country were closed as noncompliant with the new requirements.
I have almost no doubt the same will be done in Russia.
What will the cost be for Russian education?
Given the new laws mentioned above, along with the obvious beginning of a campaign to discredit private colleges in Moscow and the general trends in society, real private education in Russia has at most a few years left. Though formally private schools, colleges and universities will, of course, continue to exist, they will need to either constantly repent and apologize or join some state-oligarchic clan.
The main question is: will the current Russian education system lose anything from the liquidation of real, independent private institutions? I dare say it will not. Because there is no need for nongovernmental structures to exist if they cannot offer society meanings and values that are fundamentally different from those of the state. The average private school or private HEI today differs little from state institutions in terms of environment, content and values.
The fundamental reason for the existence of private education in Russia went out the window when its core decided to show even greater loyalty toward all government decisions than public-education peers do.
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