Paid university admissions fall 28% across 40 subjects, Falkov says

Paid admissions across 40 university subjects fell 28% in Russia this year, Education Minister Valery Falkov told the Federation Council on October 14. He put the reduction at nearly 100,000 students.

The affected subjects include law, economics and management. Falkov attributed the decline to regulation of paid admissions in areas where training volumes exceeded labour-market needs.

Full-time admissions in those subjects were down by 30,000 students, while admissions to correspondence programmes fell by almost 67,000, he said. The figures concern the selected group of subjects, rather than the whole university intake.

At the same parliamentary session, Falkov announced plans to increase state-funded places at leading universities in high-demand subjects, particularly information technology. That future allocation is separate from the reported decline in paid admissions.