Численность обучающихся в системе высшего образования: статистический анализ данных по Республике Калмыкия на фоне общероссийских данных

Abstract

Education is the most important indicator of the development of the country and its regions. The sustainability of regional development directly depends on the intellectual potential of the region. The purpose of the article, based on the analyzes of the statistical data on the number of students in the higher education system, is to consider the problems and trends in the development of higher education in the country as a whole and in the Republic of Kalmykia in particular. Materials and methods. The following materials were used when writing the article: statistical data from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Federal State Statistics Service, statistical (analytical) reviews of the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of knowledge of the National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. The methods of system-structural and statistical data analysis were applied in the study. Results. Statistical data reflect the social and economic processes taking place in the society. The data reviewed on the number of higher education institutions, their forms of ownership, the number of students and their preferred forms of education showed that in recent years the country has been experiencing the process of increasing the state control in the field of higher education expressed in the reduction of the number of universities, especially private ones, as well as in the reduction of the number of their branches, etc. In Kalmykia, as well as in the country as a whole, the number of students decreased between 2018 and 2022. Also in the republic, as well as in the country, after the active growth of the number of non-governmental higher education institutions and their branches in the early 2000s, already in 2014–2015 their quantity decreased sharply. There is also a tendency in the region to reduce the number of full-time students while increasing the number of part-time students. At the same time, the number of students studying by correspondence throughout the country is decreasing. Statistics have shown that the number of correspondence students is growing at the expense of students from the neighboring regions that can be explained by the low cost of the tuition.