Before Massification: Access to University Education in Soviet Ukraine in the 1950s-1980s (pages 75-86)
Sergij KURBATOV
Article first published online: 30 June 2014

Keywords: students, university, access to education, benefits, planned economy.

Abstract. The paper attempts to analyze the Soviet policy of providing access to higher education during the last four decades of existence of the USSR, with a particular focus on the Ukrainian case. It will include the analysis of the discourses of planned economy and central regulations regarding access to universities, and that of the official and unofficial benefits (f.e. “blat”) during admission process. As a result we could observe that the number of students, which increased 4.4 times during from 1950 to 1990, was less significant per 100,000 people, and generally speaking access to university education continued to be rather restrictive in social terms. This was one of the main prerequisites for the slow development of Soviet Ukraine in scientific and technological areas.

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