Availability of Higher Education Services: the Concept and Methods of Evaluation

Different methodological approaches to determining the accessibility of higher education services have been analyzed, and their classifcation into four groups has been proposed by the criteria: ensuring equal opportunities for people to receive higher education, compilation (accounting for a variety of factors affecting accessibility), structural (for accessibility elements of the higher education system, system) and probabilistic (accessibility as a chance to get a higher education or go on training). It is shown that the frst three approaches consider the availability of higher education services as the degree of satisfaction of demand for them. The probabilistic approach takes into account, when determining the accessibility of higher education services, both demand and supply, which most accurately reflects the essence of the notion of accessibility. The Russian and foreign methods of assessing the accessibility of higher education services in general, its separate types are considered, author’s methods are given and justifed. It is shown that for a number of components of the integrated concept of accessibility (social, fnancial, intellectual and medical), the methods for their evaluation have been worked out in sufcient detail, the least studied is the methodology for assessing and managing the territorial accessibility of higher education services.