On the Resource Stratification of Russian Universities

The research article is aimed at measuring changes in Russian universities' resourcing. Based on the resource stratification theory, it states the consistent patterns of transformation of resource-based institutional stratification in the Russian higher education system. The analysis considers several elements of the resource base: financing, students' knowledge quality, professors and teachers' qualification. Stratification implies grouping objects within a system of resources of similar quantity and quality. That is why there has been applied a cluster analysis for measuring universities' grouping. The data for the research were taken from the Higher Education Institutions' Monitoring of Performance (Ministry of Education). To measure the changes in resourcing, there has been carried out cluster analysis on two datasets, which characterize universities in 2012 and 2016. The transitions of universities from one cluster to another and certain characteristics of clusters allowed us to make a conclusion on the resource stratification getting fixed and on the increasing gap among clusters. In other words, the research has shown that the highly-resourced universities hold, or even strengthen their positions. At the same time, the medium and lowly-resourced universities also tend to fix their position in the system of resources allocation. The fact that the resourcing gap between different groups of universities is increasing makes it possible to hypothesize that the process of resource stratification fixation will continue. The article, therefore, is the first attempt at analyzing resource stratification in dynamics. The results of the research shall be useful for subsequent studies of institutional differentiation in higher education. In addition, the research can affect the discourse about various policy measures and their effects on higher education system. The results of the research also have significant practical implications, as they can be considered an important context for designing public management mechanisms in Russian