Russia expects no decrease in number of foreign students in 2023 – Minister of Science

Addis Ababa, April 27, 2023 (Sputnik/FBC) – Russia’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education does not expect the number of foreign students, applying to Russian universities, to decrease in 2023, the ministry’s head Valery Falkov said on Thursday.

“This year, we expect that the number of foreign students will not decrease. It has to do, for instance, with quotas for overseas students raised by the Russian government. If we take, let’s say, 2020 and 2023, it is really significant, the number of quotas for foreign students have doubled. This year, it will be 30,000, which have already been allocated, and in 2020 there were 15,000,” Falkov said during a press conference dedicated to university admission campaign.

Falkov added that in 2023, nearly 500 new budget seats were created in Russian universities for priority faculties. This year, applying to universities will be held according to the well-known rules, and sharp changes will be applied to the admission campaign in 2024, the minister added.

In March, a survey by Project Atlas said that Russian universities educated over 351,000 foreign students in 2022, which put Russia in the 6th position in terms of attractiveness for overseas applicants after the US, the UK, Canada, France and Australia.