This country profile is part of a collective effort by the network members to map matching practices across Europe. If you find it useful and want to refer to it in your own work, please refer to it as “Vitaliia Eliseeva (2020), University Admission Practices – Russia, MiP Country Profile 31.”
Relevant country background
After 9 years of school education students can either get into colleges that offer specialized professional training (not tertiary education) or continue to high school for two more years. After professional training or high school students may take a centralized exam to apply to universities that offer Bachelor’s and Specialist’s degrees. Following the Bologna process, in 2003 Russian universities started transferring from Specialist’s 5-year degrees to a combination of 4-year Bachelor’s and 2-year Master’s. In 2018, around 26 000 Bachelor’s programs and 3 400 Specialist’s programs were offered to high school graduates. [1] Overall, the share of the population aged 25-64 with a degree in higher education has been steadily increasing from 24.5% in 2004 to 30.2% in 2015. [8]