Problematic aspects of increasing the competitiveness of social complexes of universities

In this article, as a subject of research, various views of domestic authors on the competitiveness of a higher educational institution are considered. At the same time, special attention is paid to the competitiveness of social infrastructure and social complexes of educational organizations. As research methods used: structural, comparative and system analysis. The research methodology included a theoretical analysis of literary sources and various author's approaches to the interpretation of the concept of “higher education institution competitiveness”, as well as analysis of information posted on the websites of 16 Russian higher education institutions, and the results of studies on the competitiveness of higher education institutions. The analysis allows us to argue that the competitiveness of higher education institutions is determined by various factors. However, the influence of not all of them on the degree of demand for university services by consumers has been fully considered. The least investigated areas of activity of domestic universities from the standpoint of achieving their maximum efficiency and competitiveness are problematic issues of the social complex. It should be assumed that in the most concentrated form, the unification of this area of activity of universities is implemented within the framework of the functioning of campuses and dormitories. The most important components of the university environment, such as the creation of new knowledge and the process of their transfer without a high level of development of the basic components of the social complex, cannot be implemented in an effective manner. However, today, studies aimed at identifying the potential reserves of the university social complex receive much less attention, and most of these studies are private and do not use a systematic approach, which makes it unproductive to transfer the recommendations to other conditions.