For those who get 100 points, period: C students won't be accepted to universities even for money from 2026

Now the government will establish:

The law on state regulation of admission to universities for fee-paying departments was adopted in May. It comes into force on September 1 and will be in effect for the next admissions campaign.

“This is not about restrictions, this is about the quality of education,” said Ekaterina Kharchenko, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education.

On the one hand, yes. If educational institutions accept fewer students, then teachers will be able to pay more attention to them. The quality of education will benefit from this.

The second argument "for" is a fair competition for admission to commercial departments. Currently, due to the limited number of budget places, universities inflate the number of students admitted to fee-paying departments.

Judge for yourself: at RSUH, for example, the country's main university for training humanities specialties, there are virtually no budget places for philologists. This year, the university allocated only 36 free places in this field and another 299 on a contract basis.

The situation with obtaining higher education for specialists in advertising and PR is even more depressing. Only the eight best applicants are provided with budget places at RSUH. Half of them are for beneficiaries. The remaining 373 students will be accepted only for money. 8 against 373. The cost of education is about 400 thousand per year.

But concern for the quality of education and fair competition is only one side of the coin. The other, and deputies speak honestly about it, is the bias towards money-making specialties: economics, management, jurisprudence.

“In this situation of imbalance between the labor market and the education system, we cannot afford to train specialists who are not in demand on the market,” says Ekaterina Kharchenko.

One of the goals of the new law, according to the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Valery Falkov, will be the “elimination of low-quality higher humanitarian education” and the elimination of imbalances when universities churn out specialists who are not needed by the market.

But behind the beautiful wording about “market balance” lies a much harsher reality for thousands of graduates next year. From 2026, even those who were willing to pay for a contract risk finding themselves outside the gates of the university. If the state cuts the number of paid places, the competition for each will increase many times over. In a number of areas, this will no longer be a “contract for everyone”, but a kind of VIP zone - for children with the highest Unified State Exam scores, Olympiad winners and other holders of “golden” resumes.

For those who do not reach the established minimum, the alternative is obvious - colleges and other institutions of secondary specialized education . In reality, many programs there are not in demand among employers, and employment prospects remain vague. No stable work, no decent salary.

If the reform follows a tough scenario, universities will become the domain of a narrow layer of the "academic elite". Behind the romantic slogans of the authorities about the revival of secondary vocational education, in reality we will encounter demotivation of the youth and the drain of talents abroad. Not to mention the provocation of semi-legal "admission schemes" - through fictitious benefits or agreements with regional universities.

The authorities assure that the universities will have time to prepare for the new reform - after all, there is still a year ahead. But they modestly keep silent about the fact that contract students for the higher education institutions are also traditionally a significant part of their budget. In popular areas, fee-paying students could bring the university up to half of its income. Now this source of funding will be either closed or sharply reduced.

This will be followed by an outflow of teachers, a deterioration in the material and technical support of universities, and, consequently, the quality of education.

We will see the consequences of this law on the labor market in the next 4-5 years. A sharp decrease in the number of graduates with higher education, especially in the humanities and economics, and a shortage of mid-level specialists. Today, the authorities are fighting the "overproduction" of lawyers and economists, and tomorrow they will talk about their shortage. And start over.

Reducing contract places and strict state regulation of admission to universities is not a unique initiative of Russia. Similar measures have already been taken in a number of countries, and here is what came out of it.

In 2005–2010, the federal states of Germany also introduced quotas for fee-paying places in universities. The goal was similar to the Russian one — they were fighting for the quality of education and the overproduction of specialists in narrow fields. In practice, applicants only reoriented themselves to study at private universities. The reform did not solve the problem of personnel shortage.

In China, where there are traditionally not enough places in the country's best universities to provide education for all schoolchildren, restrictions have been introduced for "non-outstanding" children. This has increased educational inequality: schoolchildren from wealthy families have a better chance of getting into prestigious universities through preparatory schools and tutors. Low-income families are content with finishing high school and working in a factory. University is a privilege for the chosen few.