The third age universities in Russian higher education: problem area

Prolongation of business and social activity of older people is becoming a national-scale task, and Universities of the Third Age (U3A) are a noticeable global phenomenon of lifelong education, aimed at solving this problem. This paper outlines the problematic field of the Russian experience in the development of U3A on the basis of higher educational institutions. The author systematizes and subjects to comparative analysis the scattered evidence of the Russian experience of U3A as a form of the HE activity in the market of educational services, collected in secondary sources and from open data on the websites of universities. As key results this paper draws to conclusions that U3A in Russian universities are a new concept lagging world practices in terms of the scale and diffusion. Russian universities, even with sufficient funding, hardly create U3As struggling define U3As prospective for themselves. While creating U3As, they offer older students non-formal education aiming to create general cultural competencies, and repeat in this approach to the education content the Social Service Centre. This study allows to prove the importance of theoretical and practical development of the Russian model of U3A in universities, as well as to propose several management solutions. The main solutions are to rethink the role and functions of the U3A and to create them as divisions of leading universities to fulfil the strategic tasks of their development. U3A in the universities aim both at a new target market and at the implementation of the ‘third mission’ by the universities to ensure equal access to quality education beyond any, including age-related barriers.