“Where do you get 270 billion rubles from?”
The State Duma once again wants to submit a bill to increase scholarships for university students to a level not lower than the minimum wage. To do this, it is proposed to amend the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”. You can't argue with the fact that the current monthly state payment to students of Russian universities is ridiculous and forces many of them to combine their studies at a university and work (often not in their specialty). But how realistic is this initiative in the current difficult conditions for the country and despite the fact that the budget has already been approved? «MK» asked this and other questions to the authoritative economist Georgy Ostapkovich.
In his «fresh» In an explanatory note to the bill on increasing student scholarships, LDPR deputies recalled that in Soviet times, its size in leading universities was comparable to the minimum wage.
And now it’s even hard to believe that this amount is only 1,825 rubles a month.
“Such a negligible amount of state scholarships cannot support the development of educational programs by students, – stated in the accompanying document. – It is impossible to live on such a scholarship, therefore, according to the Higher School of Economics, more than half of the students somehow combine study and work. At the same time, as the deputies emphasized, “far from everyone succeeds in combining study and work, and too often the choice is made not in favor of classes.”
The Liberal Democratic Party believes that one of the reasons for the situation in the field of education is extremely low funding. Therefore, they came up with the initiative to raise scholarships for full-time students by almost 10 times, that is, to the level of the minimum wage, which is 16,242 rubles. Many experts believe that this bill is unlikely to be discussed.
“I’ve been thinking about this for two years, after my daughter left for another city to study, – shared the mother of one student. – You can only live on such a scholarship for two days. Finally, they got it! Incidentally, as MK discovered, the Liberal Democratic Party informed the public as early as January of this year about the preparation of such a bill. But both then and now, the draft law did not pass the government's financial expertise.
Georgy Ostapkovich, a well-known economist and director of the HSE Center for Market Research, said that in order to implement this really very important measure for our education, now not the right time.
– To begin with, of course, today this is a key position & nbsp; – knowledge economy, – explains Georgy Ostapkovich. – The fact is that we, our country, is in a certain isolation from the supply of technological products. That is, we need to do it either with our own hands, or find logistics in the Asian (Eastern) direction. We need to gradually move to independent «flight». And for this we need to raise education, first of all, technological.
– Of course it's an incentive! Now many students, in order to maintain their, let's say, living standards, are forced to work. Moreover, very often not in their main specialty, but to work in order to earn money.
The main task of the student – it is to gain knowledge, listen to various courses and the like. And distraction to some «otherworldly» work comes at the expense of knowledge.
Therefore, of course, I am with both hands «for» scholarship increase. But this is an old idea, it's not the first time it «pops up». Those 1800 or 2000 rubles that are paid to students is «laughter in the hall.» If you do not have any family transfers, you simply cannot physically study. Even if you have Lomonosov's talent, you can't just study and live on a scholarship of about 2,000 rubles.
But the problem is that raising scholarships for university students to the level of the minimum wage does not fit into our current budget.
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If we estimate the numbers, then we have roughly four million students, even a little more. But these are students of all forms – and full-time students, and part-time students, and state employees, and commercial, and bachelors (so far), and masters. If we talk about increasing scholarships, then, first of all, it is necessary to increase students who study on a budget. There are roughly one and a half million of them. And they propose to give such a quantity at the minimum wage per month (16,000 rubles with a little). If you round up (subtract the already existing amount, – 1800 rubles), then you need to find 15,000 rubles. per month per student. 15000 rub. multiply by 12, we get 180 thousand rubles. per student per year. If we take one and a half million students, we get 270 billion rubles. – annual costs. This is how much culture, cinematography, physical culture and sports cost in total in our budget. Where will you find such money now in the conditions of the budget deficit? This is just unreal. The budget has been approved for this year and for the next two years…
– What you need to increase the scholarship – this is unambiguous, but I would suggest some other maneuvers. For example, in economically developed countries it is customary to give a subsidized loan for education. That is, a person receives a loan for education. Then, after training, within five or 10 years, when he has already received an education, he will «beat off» this loan from your salary when you get a job.
And now what happens? Suppose they increase the scholarship. But a student can study very badly, and after two years, give it all up altogether. And for two years he will sit on these 16 thousand rubles. and, as the saying goes, «smoking bamboo.» This is also not the way to victory … We need to look for options: subsidized loans, some of which the state can then take on itself, participation in some work in specific institutions in their specialty at a university (and not so that a student of a technical specialty goes to couriers or movers). On the other hand, perhaps it would be more correct not to immediately take the minimum wage, but to increase it at least three times for a start. In this case, the burden on the budget will be much less.
As for this bill, I wonder what was the reaction to it in the Ministry of Finance and has it already been? Where to get these 270 billion rubles? Let's move on to economic growth and economic development, and then we will set the first task – it's a stipend increase. This is the right idea, because today the knowledge economy should work, and the knowledge economy is raised by teachers and students. Today they should be at the forefront in terms of import substitution, especially technological products.