The place of education in Russia's “soft power” policy: strategic directions and tools

Abstract

The author attempts to study the place of education in Russia's “soft pow-er” policy. In order to achieve this goal, a survey was conducted among undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students at the leading Russian universities with the largest number of foreign students. In particular, the satisfaction of foreign citizens with living conditions, education, facilities and equipment of the universities was analyzed. In addition, it was found that when choosing a country (university), the citizens of the CIS countries, to a greater extent than the Chinese and Indians, were guided by the feedback of university graduates, advice from their close environment, and the conventional media (television, radio, and the press). It was also found that foreign students, when choosing a university in Russia to enter, rely on the resources of their family or family group (economic, symbolic, cultural, social capital), that is, they act rationally. If students cannot afford to be educated straight away at a prestigious university in the Russian Federation, they first enter the university in Russia that they can, and then plan to continue their studies at the master's or postgraduate level of the desired university. It has been proven that applicants from wealthy families are guided by the university's rating when choosing a university. Applicants from families that belong to the group of moderate means, when choosing a university, focus on such institutions of higher education, which are easy to enter, just to leave their country and never to return. It has also been found that applicants from neighboring countries seek higher education in Russia, as many of them know Russian, but do not know English, Portuguese, German, French at the appropriate level and cannot afford to study at the highly ranked Western universities and in developed East Asian countries. Most applicants evaluate the quality of education by the level of GDP growth, the higher the GDP growth, the more willing they are to enroll in universities in a given country.