Assessment of Conditions for Obtaining Higher Education by Foreign Students in Regional Institutions of Higher Education in Russia

Anna Pukhova, Tatiana Belyaeva

Abstract

The article is devoted to assessing the conditions for obtaining higher education by foreign students in regional universities of Russia. In the course of the study the authors discovered that in the recent decades the competition of regional universities for foreign students has increased. Currently, the number of students from foreign countries is constantly growing. This growth is caused mostly by the CIS countries. According to the results of the interviews conducted by the authors, the main indicator of the attractiveness of education in Russia for foreign students is a good quality of education and its low cost. The most popular fields of studies for foreign citizens are: engineering, medicine and economics. The main influx of students is observed in the educational institutions of Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Stavropol and other cities of Russia. In the process of research the authors identified some difficulties encountered by foreign students. The study showed that the majority of students who came to Russia to continue their studies in higher education are satisfied with the quality of education. The authors defined a complex of activities designed to attract foreign students to regional universities in Russia.