ENTREPRENEURS IN RUSSIAN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. EXPERIENCE AND PROSPECTS

Entrepreneurship is an essential feature of the modern economy. Its main characteristics are: initiative style, independence, systematic update, innovative ideas, financial and social risks. The purpose of such an activity is to earn profit - as in classical business. Currently, in Russia entrepreneurship is developing in various fields, each possessing its own characteristic features. The academic purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of entrepreneurship in the field of education in Russia. These features proceed from the fact that education belongs to the branches of the social sphere. Educational organizations are created mainly as non-profit organizations. In these circumstances profit-making cannot be the goal of their activities, including the entrepreneurial one. At the same time, in conditions of limited budget funding, budget educational organizations are forced to find various types of activities that bring them additional income. The implementation of market principles in the work of educational organizations allows us to reduce budget expenditures for their maintenance and to ensure the development of the quality and scope of services provided. The independence of educational organizations is expanding. Competition encourages improving the quality of education, introducing various innovations. This determines the need for entrepreneurial activity in educational organizations, which becomes a necessary condition for their development, increased competitiveness, and improved material and technical base, increasing the salaries of teachers and staff. In the 90s, new type of universities began to emerge in Russia, which crucial difference from those of the state is based on principally new form of financing. That means that they are financed only by students, charitable foundations and sponsors. The emergence of commercial universities has helped make higher education more accessible, especially in regions where educational innovations are not penetrating so quickly. On the other hand, there were precedents for some abuses, because of which unscrupulous institutions lost their license and cast a shadow on the reputation of other nonstate institutions. Another problem of Russian commercial universities is that their funding is not enough for the needs prescribed in the licensing rules. So, new trends in Russian education as far as new challenges in this field are being researched in the article. Main methods, used in the research: method of structural analysis, method of statistics, method of economic analysis and method of complex analysis.