The phrase "free education" has long been turned into a humorous expression. In the new socio-economic conditions in which our country has been living since 1991, the right to study exists, but no one guarantees that such services will be provided completely free of charge.
Consider eligibility for such university education.
So, is there any hope for today's high school graduates?
Of course, there is such hope. Many of the graduates of this year and next years will study at state-funded places and receive long-awaited scholarships. Many, but not all.
After all, completely free education in the Russian Federation is provided only in schools, and even then there are paid additional educational services. In colleges and universities, it is also possible to study for free, but not everyone who wants to find themselves in such places.
If you have a benefit (you are a disabled person, an orphan, a son or daughter of the Hero of Russia), then it is easier for you to get a university place on a budget place, but if you are not among the beneficiaries, everything becomes much more difficult, and you enter generalgrounds.
And it is very, very difficult to enter a university for a state-funded place on a general basis.
But more about everything.
All about budget places in universities
Every year the Ministry of Education determines the number of budget places in higher educational institutions of our country. As you know, such places assume that an applicant who enters a university will receive his education completely free of charge (that is, without investing his personal funds in it), and also the state itself will pay him a small financial incentive (in other words, a scholarship).
However, if an applicant does not score enough points to enter a state-funded place, he can study at a paid department, paying a certain fee for his studies at the university every semester (naturally, he will not receive any scholarships).
Here, it would seem, budget places in universities - this is a real free education. However, everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance.
Because then our education system would be just perfect, but it is far from it.
Number of budget places
The number of budget places is calculated by the number of school graduates. It is equal to about half of all the country's eleventh graders who leave the walls of high school.
At the same time, not every second school graduate eventually enters a state-funded place in a university, because in addition to yesterday's schoolchildren, there are also college graduates, as well as graduates of pastyears. As a result, competition for state-funded places throughout the country averages 4-5 people per place. For some speci alties, the competition is less, for others it is many times more and reaches 20-30 people per one budget place.
It all depends on the prestige of a particular speci alty.
Therefore, with such “arithmetic”, it becomes much more difficult to get a free education at a university.
Number of state-funded places in full-time and part-time departments
It should be noted that the number of budget places in full-time and part-time departments, as a rule, differs. Universities allocate more places for full-time departments, fewer places for correspondence departments.
It also happens that it is generally impossible to get a correspondence education for free. There are speci alties in universities, but they are completely transferred to a paid basis.
The only thing that can be advised to the applicant is to collect as much useful information as possible. Already in the spring, the exact number of budget places is always known. All universities have their own websites, where you can always find a page for applicants. The admission plan is always posted on this page.
Hence the advice - if you want to get a free education, make every effort to achieve your goal. Find out in advance the number of budget places for a particular educational profile and calculate your strength.
What majors can I enroll in for free?
There are a fairly large number of speci alties inuniversities that are considered non-prestigious, so the competition for them is small.
Trends, of course, change over time, but in general there are always such professions.
For example, in every fifth or sixth major university there are teaching speci alties, which involve training with the qualification of a "teacher of the Russian language." And there is another department, after graduating from which you can get a diploma not of a teacher, but of a philologist or journalist. Of course, the last two professions are considered more prestigious, so there is more competition for the budget for them.
The same can be said about other professions: livestock specialist, specialist in socio-cultural activities, librarian and so on. Here, it will not be difficult for a school graduate with an average USE score to enter a state-funded place.
But, for example, becoming a lawyer or an economist for free will be much more difficult. And as a specialist in international law - and even more so …
What is the destination?
However, there is another opportunity to get higher education for free. It is connected with admission to the so-called "target" place.
What is it about? The fact that an agreement is concluded between the employer of a potential applicant and the university, according to which the employer pays for the education of a young student, and then he has the right to demand that the specialist work for him for a certain number of years. Often such an employer is the state itself, represented by ministries and departments that need specialistssome kind of training.
For example, doctors are needed for the subject of the federation (there is an acute shortage of them now). A quota of 30-70 target places is allocated for this subject. An applicant enters a university and studies on a par with other students, however, after receiving a diploma, he is obliged to work for several years in public medical institutions of the subject, thanks to which he received his target place.
Otherwise, the student is obliged to reimburse the state for their education in full.
Can I get professional retraining for free?
Some young people who already have higher education eventually realize that the profession does not suit them.
But they already once in their lives received higher education for free. They need to undergo professional retraining with the right to engage in a new type of professional activity.
Is it possible? Yes, it is possible, however, if state-funded places in universities are still preserved, then additional professional education is offered exclusively as a paid type of educational service. Therefore, such a person, in fact, has two ways to solve his problem.
First decision: pay for your own education.
Second solution: try to have the employer pay for this training.
In fact, there are cases where employers are interested in raising the level of professional skills of their employees and even giving them the opportunity to get the right to engage in newtype of professional activity.
This is what you can use to get a diploma of vocational retraining for free.
Can I get a second higher education without paying?
Unfortunately, according to the law on education of our country, it is impossible to get a second free education at a university. The state guarantees only one education. Let's make a reservation right away that we are not talking about continuing education, for example, in a magistracy or graduate school.
But, alas, it will not work to unlearn twice for free at the bachelor's degree or stay twice in the master's program. This applies even to those cases where the first higher education was also paid.
Is it possible to transfer from a paid branch to a free one?
Many students who enter the paid departments of universities, sparing their material resources, and sometimes simply not having enough of them, tend to transfer from a paid department to a free one.
Thus, they want to get higher education for free, only starting not from the 1st year, but a little higher.
Is this possible?
In general, this is possible, but there are certain nuances that you need to know.
Firstly, a paying student can get a budget place only if there are vacant budget places at the university. Simply put, if one of the state students was expelled. Further, it is necessary that its translation be agreed with the curator of the group, the dean of the faculty. Many universities prescribe rulestransfer from a paid department to the budget, indicating that such a student candidate for a budget place should be an excellent student or a good student, should show himself from the best side, his teachers should speak positively about him, etc.
If secondary education was received free of charge, is it possible to enter a university on a budget?
Yes, such a procedure is possible. Secondary special and secondary vocational education will not prevent a young person from continuing his studies in a higher educational institution. Moreover, college graduates today have an opportunity that school graduates are deprived of: they can enter universities without the exam, passing only entrance exams.
Moreover, practice shows that such applicants get higher scores in entrance exams than high school graduates, so they are more likely to get a budget place.
What can help an applicant get a budget place?
Well, first of all, good knowledge in the field of those sciences that he will have to study. A high USE for a modern school graduate is a “real ticket” not only to a budget place, but also to a prestigious university.
Secondly, the applicant needs to show real ingenuity, study carefully all the speci alties that are offered in universities, find out what competition is in these speci alties, etc.
Thirdly, the applicant must know his rights well. Now it is not uncommon for members of admissions committees, at the suggestion of heads of universities, to refuse to accept documents for budgettraining for frivolous reasons. This is done in order to prevent “people from the street” from participating in budget education. Therefore, the applicant himself and his parents must firmly know all their rights and be able to defend them.
Are there other opportunities to get a budget place?
Basically, all the ways to the budget place were listed above by us. There are, however, several other ways. For example, there are free competitions of the Ministry of Education. The prize for winning them often becomes the right to a budget place in a particular university. Also, in rare cases, a university may accept a promising student not for a state-funded place, but for a place that he himself will finance from his own internal funds.
Thus, in general, everything depends on the will of the heads of universities themselves and the responsible secretary of the selection committee.
What conclusions can we draw?
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that it is possible to get an education for free in modern conditions. However, this requires a lot of effort. You also need to have high academic performance, be able to navigate the modern labor market, correctly choose the right speci alty and the right university.
In fact, today, despite significant progress, it is also difficult for a person who dreams of knowledge and an academic degree to prove his worth, as in the days of M. V. Lomonosov. What the Russian genius just did not survive in order to get the proper degree of education: and deprivation, and hunger, and cold. Meanwhile, he also studiedgovernment account, that is, in modern terms, occupied a budget place.
His example proves that those who want to learn can get higher education for free. Therefore, everything is in our hands: our successes and our defeats. You just need to boldly go forward and not be afraid of anything.
