Modern higher education through the prism of conceptual priorities

All the characteristic features of a particular historical development of society objectively and naturally apply to almost both the social institution and higher education, which is an integral part of the social environment. However, higher education is expected not only to follow in the fairway of certain trends specific to a particular era and a particular society but higher education is also associated with hopes for qualified awareness of risks and threats, as well as providing professional proposals for crisis management and overcoming negative trends. Although this aspect is quite obvious, the research community usually does not pay due attention to it, and therefore the detailing and systematization of this aspect have all the hallmarks of scientific novelty. In the context of the outlined research needs, the aspects of the quality and efficiency of education, as well as the types of intelligence that modern higher education is designed to cultivate and generate, are understood. The humanistic ideal of the university and its correspondence to the marketing model of modern higher education, as well as controversial ideas about equality and justice in education, are studied. The ideological and conceptual priorities that underlie leadership-type education are analyzed. The notion of critical thinking, creativity and heuristics as the target priorities of modern higher education is systematized, the key obstacles in this way and means of overcoming them are revealed. Factors and conceptual priorities that can significantly increase the capacity of modern higher education as a generator of human capital, a model of intensive and innovative development of society, are outlined.