Methods of the Quality of Higher Education Social Assessment.

This article describes the methodical problems of the ranking of Russian universities by the independent ranking agency RatER1. The main features of this ranking system are public estimations of the quality of the higher education in Russia. The results of the sociological study were processed by the original statistical methods. The procedure involves the opinions of the graduate students, teaching staff, employers and independent experts. The interviews show the current state of the education system in different regions of the Russian Federation. The paper also attempts to provide some recommendations for the development of the proposed ranking method. 1. ‘RatER’ is the English abbreviation for Rating of Educational Resources – an Independent Ranking Agency in the Russian Federation.