Center for Civil Society International (ccsi@u.washington.edu)
Wed, 18 Jan 1995 18:57:18 -0800 (PST)
Sender: "Irina V. Alyoshina" <alyoshin@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Subject: Re: Housing Reform
From Irina Alyoshina, assist.prof., visiting faculty scholar in USA.
Urban Institute assists Russian housing Reform, and I have a
question: maybe USIA has future plans of financing the program of
privatization the sphere of higher education?
Russian university professors on state salaries (from 40 to 200 dollars
per month) have problems with paying market-level rents, which in Moscow
can reach and exceed Washington DC's level...
Russian professors, I think, could receive market salaries if
market-level tuition payments by students were introduced. But in this
case the majority of students would be the children of new Russia's
questionable elite and criminal world. And they are always the weakest
students. The most clever--the children of today's impoverished
intelligentzi--would be left out.
Russian state university professors, teachers in public schools and
other employees of state organizations (excluding the state bureaucracy)
receive low fixed salaries and nothing else, but need to pay high market
prices for food (it is about 80% of their budgets), clothes, services,
transport, medication and everything else...
So, what about privatizing higher education in Russia? If all of Russia's
professors flow into the business sector from universities in search of
market-level salaries, what will happen to Russian university education?
It would be interesting to know the strategic plans of American
reformers of Russian economy and society. For not every Russian is
ready to pay for a foreign education, and not a lot of foreign professors
are ready to work in Russia ...
I am not sure there are any pluses for the world if a poorly-
educated Russia becomes simply the source of raw materials for
developed countries--the situation would be both serious and
unfavorable.
Private education and/or state credits for university education seems
to be the solution. I think, USIA should consider the necessity of
balancing their reform activity in Russia as soon as Russians decide to
reform something in our country.
I.Alyoshina.
403 Monroe Hall, Dept. of Management Science, SBPM,
2115 G st., NW, George Washington Univ.
Washington DC, 20052, USA
fax (202) 944-49 30, tel.(202) 994 7375
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