Differentiation in higher education: the main concepts and approaches to study

In the article there are given different approaches to institutional diversity and differentiation analysis realized by foreign and Russian experts. B. Clark’s triangle of coordination and the stakeholders’ theory are proposed as a methodology for the analysis of emerging higher education landscape in Russia. The authors concluded that the state as a main stakeholder of higher education should have a wide range of priorities of the educational policy and more flexible instruments to encourage the differentiation and diversity in Russian higher education system.