Educational lending in Russia: problems and prospects

Improvement of higher schools' competitiveness is one of the major conditions of the scientific resources development in the country. For this reason the issues of universities' cooperation with other institutions of science, business structures working in the same area, diversity of the revenue sources of educational institutions are becoming ever more relevant. The system of educational loans is an important tool encouraging optimization of the financial structure of universities and regulation of their activities in the context of the world economy globalization. The main objective of the educational loan system is to reduce the budget financing of higher education and at the same time to keep or increase the level of access to education. Effective functioning of the aforesaid system occurs in case of interaction of four subjects: higher educational institution, financial institutions, government and population. In 2009 the Russian Federation adopted the law on educational loans that establishes liability of the parties, as well as the rules for issuing educational loans. Today the system works in two spheres: loans for educational purposes carried out by commercial banks without restrictions for the credit institution (they are different from consumer loans by slightly more lenient repayment terms); subsidized educational loans with state support on priority occupations (it is brought into effect only in certain universities and on specific educational programs). The current problems, such as the lack of interest of financial and educational institutions, the unprofitability of this kind of lending, the crediting of unpopular areas of study mainly, prevent the wide spread of the educational crediting in Russia. Thus, there is a need for reinforcement of the state activities focused on the support and development of the educational lending.