Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 3 – More than 2,000 people have been admitted to 18 leading universities under the special quotas the Kremlin has established for veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine and their children. A third were admitted without having to take admission tests, and 70 percent of those who did not score high enough to get in had they not enjoyed this preference.
That is the conclusion of an investigation by three journalists at the Important Stories portal (istories.media/news/2024/08/02/postuplenie-svo/); and while Russians in general may favor giving this benefit to benefits, both those who failed to get in because veterans and their children took their places and their parents admittedly relatively small groups are likely to have a different view.
They are likely to see this arrangement as discriminating against them; and if they do, that will be yet another way in which Putin’s war will exacerbate tensions within Russian society and especially of those who hope for gaining education that in Russia as in most other countries is typically the key to upward social mobility.
Another group likely to be angered by this will be the faculty of these institutions and others concerned about the quality of higher education in the Russian Federation and who will conclude that if the regime is prepared to force these institutions to take people who couldn't qualify on the basis of normal order, then that regime is no friend either of what they do or the future of Russia as a whole.
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