The Soviet Reform of Higher Education

In June 1986, the Soviet Union published a draft decree on the restructuring of higher education and released the final version in March 1987. This study first characterizes the main purposes of the reform: linking higher education more directly to the economy through work experiences for students and faculty; improving the quality and quantity of scientific research; tightening admissions requirements and improving student services; refitting universities with advanced technology and new laboratory facilities; revising procedures for ideological education; and changing the administrative structure of the postsecondary education system. Next, it examines the wellsprings of the current reform: population and demographic changes, shifts in technology and popular attitudes about education, and the need to improve economic output. Finally, it considers the discussion that the reform proposal itself generated. The long-term fate of the reform is linked to other changes now under way in Soviet society. If fully enacted, the reform could provide the USSR with a quite different and powerful system of higher education.