Petersburg University equated to MSU

Yesterday, Dmitry Medvedev signed a law on the special status of two leading universities: Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities. Along with the loss of freedom, they received special rights and privileges, including the right to issue diplomas of their own type and approve study programs without the consent of the Ministry of Education.

For SPSU, a separate line has been allocated in the state budget of Russia (Moscow State University has had this privilege since 1989).

In fact, now MSU and St. Petersburg State University have absolutely equal status in the new system of higher education, which the authorities are now trying to build. This system has the following hierarchy:

• two largest university centers: Moscow and St. Petersburg;
• federal universities (created three years ago);
• New research universities that will appear in the future (it is believed that by attracting private funding for research, the American model will be introduced instead of the traditional German model (with the Research Institute and the Russian Academy of Sciences));
• all other universities.

Let's see how successful this experiment will be.

Dmitry Medvedev also said that a specific program for the development of two university centers should be prepared on the basis of the new law. Since Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University are now registered in the budget, expenses in any size can be punched right through the State Duma.