Demography and democracy in Russia: Human capital challenges to democratic consolidation

Demokratizatsiya, Winter 2003 by Balzer, Harley

Educational and Social Stratification

Russian higher education institutions now enroll more students, both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population, than at any time in Russian history. Those with adequate financial resources (or connections) can obtain a world-class education, but the educational opportunities are not extending to a majority of the population. More than two-thirds of the students in higher education come from the one-quarter of the population that is relatively well-off. The cost of attending the best universities is high, and a corrupt system of admissions makes it almost prohibitive for most families. At the end of the 1990s a secret memorandum circulating in the Ministry of Education warned of a possible bunt (riot) by parents outraged at the cost of bribes for tutors and admissions. The ministry has responded by trying to draw private money into the public system and is struggling to introduce a standardized entrance exam for higher school admissions.

What are the increased numbers of university students studying? The honest answer is that no one really knows. Of the 387 private institutions of higher education in the Russian Federation, perhaps one-third are officially accredited. At the state-funded institutions, enrollments in Soviet-era specialties in construction, transportation, and engineering are returning to Soviet-era levels. In some cases the content of the curriculum has changed while the labels have not; in other instances new labels disguise unreformed educational programs. For half of the young men enrolled in higher education institutions, avoiding military service is the top priority. While the military operation in Chechnya continues, access to higher education can be a matter of life and death. This increases both the willingness to pay and the resentment when a son does not gain admission.

The increase in higher education enrollments has been accompanied by decreasing coverage at the other levels of the education system, the opposite of what is occurring in OECD nations. Kindergarten and day-care programs have declined markedly; many street children are not attending school, and some 10 percent to 20 percent of those in school drop out by the fifth year of elementary education. Poorly educated young people could become a Russian "underclass."

The welfare state everywhere is under pressure from global economic competition and the inability of a declining number of workers to support growing populations of pensioners whose medical needs constantly increase. In June 2002 Spain and France experienced strikes over government policies to cut back welfare systems that are far less extensive than what the USSR aspired to provide. Russia has both a tradition of more welfare and a more acute version of the aging population syndrome. If there is any saving grace here it may be that in the USSR no one really believed that all of the social benefits would be provided as promised, so the reaction may be less intense. But in Russia, as elsewhere, pensioners vote in large numbers.