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University and business: how can Russia attract half a million international students
Against the background of changes in the higher education system in Russia and a large number of criminal cases brought against university officials, universities face difficulties in attracting foreign students, experts said. One of the difficulties arising from attempts to increase the number of students from abroad is the large number of gray recruitment agencies that send ordinary migrant workers to Russia instead of real applicants. To solve this problem, the Ministry of Education and Science will introduce "white lists" of recruiting agencies — the agency has already developed criteria for their inclusion in the register. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
How many foreign students are there in Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has set a goal to bring the number of international students to 500,000 by 2030, said Konstantin Mogilevsky, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
"The momentum that has been gained now demonstrates that we are quite capable of fulfilling this task, and it will certainly be fulfilled," he said.
The number of international students in universities has already exceeded 400,000, although the data varies depending on the source.
In the report of the Ministry of Education and Science on the results of activities for 2024, two figures are given at once: 429.4 thousand and more than 395 thousand international students. The document does not explain why the numbers differ. In the analytical note "Educational migration to Russia: the current state and development prospects" by Irina Ivakhnyuk, a member of the Global Association of Migration Policy Experts, states that in 2024 there were 376,000 foreign students in the country. The expert estimated the increase in their number at 27% in five years.
Meanwhile, in February, the media, citing the Ministry of Education and Science, reported that 402 thousand foreign citizens studied in Russia in 2025, but in December the ministry called a different figure — 414 thousand foreigners.
According to the report of the Ministry of Education and Science, Kazakhstan (59 thousand), Uzbekistan (54 thousand) and Turkmenistan (53 thousand) supplied the most students to Russia in 2024. China, India, Tajikistan, Belarus, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan are also in the top ten. According to other data (including an analytical note by Irina Ivakhnyuk), Turkmenistan is in second place after Kazakhstan, and China is in third.
About 60% of international students are citizens of CIS countries, but the number of visitors from far abroad (China, India, Egypt, Iran) is growing rapidly — by two to three times compared to 2019. Most of them went to Russia to study in medical, economic, pedagogical and IT fields. The most frequent applicants were in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, as well as the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions.
At the same time, as indicated in the analytical note, only about 10% of foreign graduates remain working in Russia. Most of these are students from the CIS countries. Students from abroad tend to return home with a Russian diploma.
Only a small proportion of students come according to the quotas of the Russian government: in 2026, the quota for free tuition for foreign citizens is 30 thousand places.
Rossotrudnichestvo told Izvestia that 19,630 candidates were successfully selected in the 2025-2026 admission campaign, and a total of 17,842 people were assigned to universities. The admission campaign for 2026-2027 is still ongoing. Currently, more than 10,000 candidates have been selected, but the list has not yet been completed.
Why universities are at risk because of foreigners
The work on the admission of foreign students to universities is not without problems. Over the past year and a half, according to Izvestia's calculations, seven criminal cases have been initiated against officials of higher educational institutions who were involved in the admission of foreigners. One of the latest was at Irkutsk State Agrarian University, where the director of the university's Center for International Services was suspected of illegally legalizing migrants: knowing that foreign citizens did not study at the institute, she artificially maintained their student status, provided fictitious exams and exams, did not initiate their expulsion and eviction from university dormitories, and also removal from migration registration.
Cases are also being investigated at the St. Petersburg Restoration and Construction Institute (SPbRSI), Ulyanovsk State Technical University (UlSTU), Nizhny Novgorod State Agrotechnological University (NGATU), Karachay-Cherkess State University, Lesnikovsky branch of Kurgan State University (KSU) and Gatchina University.
Russian Russian Cooperation, speaking about cases of criminal cases where migrants entered universities without knowledge of the Russian language and motivation to study, told Izvestia that the issue of possible testing in the Russian language of all foreign citizens planning to study in Russia is now being considered.
Such criminal cases undoubtedly force rectors to take this topic more seriously, and sometimes with caution — however, they have to fulfill KPIs, said Evgeny Bely, Doctor of Technical Sciences.
Irina Abankina, a professor at the HSE Institute of Education, also pointed out that universities have "a lot of risks to fulfill the tasks of admitting foreign students." It's not just about criminal cases, there are basically too many unknowns in the organization of higher education in Russia due to its reformatting.
— It remains unclear how the levels of education will be organized, whether the master's degree will remain or whether it will be some kind of unparalleled level of education or a side branch. We are making progress in increasing the proportion of international students in medicine, but there we are switching to targeted training and mandatory post-graduation work. So here, too, the prospects remain unclear," said the Izvestia interlocutor.
Another problem is that English—language programs in universities are being curtailed in Russia, but extensive study of the Russian language abroad has not yet been organized. Although, Irina Abankina admits, cooperation in education within the framework of the BRICS has been noticeably intensified. Russian Russian Cooperation reported that Russian language courses are already operating in Russian homes around the world, and about 15 thousand people study at them annually. The system of additional education centers at Rossotrudnichestvo institutions abroad is also developing: 56 such organizations have been opened over the past three years.
"The moment for expanding the influence of Russian universities in the international arena is quite appropriate, given the deep financial problems of higher education in foreign countries, their dependence on the political ambitions of leaders who are changing the rules of the game due to the migration crisis and general tension," Irina Abankina continued. — But even if we don't understand what's going on here and what the pilot universities are working on, what can we say about applicants and their families in other countries?
How will recruitment agencies be selected?
The key problem of Russian universities is that they "still do not have transparent and generally accepted agency selection mechanisms," Dmitry Nersesyan, director of the Education Export Center, is convinced. We are talking about recruitment agencies, private companies that help universities find students, especially paid ones.
Monitoring their activities is important because the majority of international students study on a commercial basis — this is confirmed in Ivakhnyuk's analytical note (only 12% of students enrolled in 2024 according to the government's quota, 45 thousand people). Konstantin Mogilevsky said the same thing in early May. According to him, more than 300,000 foreign students receive education in Russia for a fee, and it is due to such students that the number of foreigners in universities is growing.
Unfortunately, very often the involvement of citizens of other countries in universities becomes the sphere of activity of unscrupulous business. Industry sources told Izvestia that at least one of the criminal cases did involve a gray agency that, in fact, sent migrants to the university who were not going to study. According to him, most of the international students are provided by a legal business, but the share of the gray market is still large. Such companies often operate under the auspices of the "association of foreign graduates," the source added.
In this regard, Russia is going to create a "white list" of accredited agencies for quality control. The Ministry of Education and Science informed Izvestia that the interdepartmental working group on the formation of the register is currently working on a model of interaction between universities and agencies, creating a list of agencies (the regulation on the procedure for their formation has already been approved), and also developing and analyzing proposals on mechanisms for regulating joint work.
There are four criteria for evaluating their activities.:
— The agency must be officially registered in the country of operation.;
— the agency must have proven positive work experience in the field of international education for at least two years.;
— it is mandatory to have an official website in Russian and English, as well as in the language of the partner country, which will contain information on the list and cost of services, the total number of foreign citizens accepted to study in Russia with the assistance of the agency.;
— an assessment of the agency's reputation, obtained from a university or a scientific organization, is mandatory.
The list is currently being finalized. It will include both Russian and foreign organizations.
"When developing proposals for regulatory regulation, a model will be created in which Russian universities will be able to work only with agencies included in the official, regularly updated register," the Ministry of Education and Science added.
Rossotrudnichestvo, which is part of the interdepartmental working group, clarified that they requested and summarized information about well-known recruiting organizations through a network of their foreign centers. This was necessary because the agency, as a rule, does not interact with such agencies in its daily operations, as it operates under the quota of the Government of the Russian Federation.
— Nevertheless, we do not deny that recruitment agencies are present in the general information field, and we intersect with them at educational exhibitions and other events to promote Russian education. We have to note that today we are more aware of unscrupulous agencies, and this is directly related to the fact that we regularly receive appeals from deceived foreign students who have suffered from their actions," Rossotrudnichestvo said.
Information about agencies that have come to the attention of the department in this context is transmitted to the Ministry of Education and Science in order to exclude them from the formed "white list".
The share of foreign students entering Russian universities remains minimal, Dmitry Nersesyan admitted. Therefore, agencies continue to play a key role in attracting foreign applicants.
"Most Russian universities experience a lack of attention from strong recruiting partners: agents are demand—driven and prefer to cooperate with universities from large cities," the expert explained. — As a result, regional universities are forced to independently build a strategy for positioning their regions as attractive to international students.
At the same time, educational institutions operating under the government's quota do without the help of recruiting agencies: for example, the Presidential Academy (RANEPA) had already selected more than 300 people from 30 countries by quota at the beginning of May 2026.
— Yes, recruitment agencies still play a significant role, especially in the countries of Asia, Africa and the CIS. However, the proportion of students enrolling directly through the websites of universities and representative offices of Rossotrudnichestvo is also growing," Natalia Shafinskaya, head of the International Development Department at the Presidential Academy, told Izvestia. — The trend towards reducing dependence on agencies is increasing, but for a number of countries (for example, India and China) they remain an important channel.
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