Inequality in Access to Higher Education in Russia

Using data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers (TrEC) longitudinal panel study from 2011 to 2015, we empirically examine the effects of economic, geographic, and gender-based barriers on access to higher education in Russia. Our approach is designed to identify both direct and indirect impacts on the probability of university enrolment. Direct impacts are those that directly affect enrolment, while indirect impacts affect enrolment operating through aspirations to enrol in higher education. The direct impacts of income and place of residence on the probability of university enrolment, net of the effects of aspirations, are significant: a higher income increases the probability of university enrolment by between 5.3 and 18.8 percentage points depending on the income level, and living in a city increases the probability by between 6.0 and 10.9 percentage points compared to living in a rural area. In contrast, the net direct impact of gender on the probability of university enrolment is statistically non-significant; however, the indirect impact, operating through educational aspirations, is significant: girls are 4.4 percentage points more likely to intend to enrol in higher education. The net direct probability of university enrolment is independent of gender. Although a child’s gender does not directly hinder university enrolment, it exerts a significant indirect influence by shaping girls’ aspirations to enrol at university much more than it does for boys.