The Ministry of Education on the future of universities: fewer applicants, new priorities and restructuring of the system

The state of Ukrainian higher education is increasingly becoming the subject of harsh public criticism, as some teachers, students, and university communities perceive the actions of the Ministry of Education and Science as a course towards destroying the system: narrowing the network of institutions, increasing the cost of tuition, weakening the classical university model, and replacing deep educational policy with constant crisis administration. Against this background, Deputy Minister of Education and Science Mykola Trofymenko explained the logic of the current decisions of the Ministry of Education and Science through a general model of the future.

According to the words of Deputy Minister of Education and Science Mykola Trofymenko, Ukrainian higher education is entering a new phase, where the usual ideas about admission, budget places, popular specialties, and the role of the university itself no longer work the way they did in the pre-war years. In terms of position, this change looks systemic: the state distributes support differently, takes into account the country’s personnel needs, rebuilds the network of institutions, prepares students for security challenges, and at the same time forces universities to look at themselves through the prism of demography, which promises much tougher competition for each entrant.

The logic of the Ministry of Education and Science boils down to the fact that the university system is already living in new circumstances, where the prestige of a separate signboard, the inertia of previous years and the mechanical reproduction of old models no longer guarantee stability. Higher education, according to this approach, should become stronger in content, more precise in priorities and tougher towards its own inefficiency.

Grants for education: support for strong applicants who did not get a budget place

One of the main topics of Trofymenko’s explanation was state financial support for those applicants who have high or above average results in the national multi-subject test, but study under a contract. The Ministry of Education and Science considers the grant as a non-refundable targeted assistance designed to support the applicant in his choice of university and educational program, if he did not receive a budget place.

In 2025, the basic amounts of such grants were 17 and 25 thousand hryvnias, but the final amount of support depended on a system of coefficients related to the specialty and location of the institution. Because of this, the grant in most cases covers only part of the cost of education, although for certain programs and certain conditions it can compensate for it in full. The official also cites the results of a two-year experiment: more than 40 thousand students have already taken advantage of this opportunity, and the average grant exceeded 23 thousand hryvnias.

He notes that most often the grants were used by applicants from Kyiv and Lviv regions, and psychology, motor transport, philology, computer technologies, architecture and urban planning were the leading directions. Law and economics were also added to this list, which indicates the preservation of the influence of traditionally popular specialties, despite the state’s attempt to reorient support to other industries.

Which areas does the state support more strongly?

Trofymenko’s presentation shows a clear principle: more active financial support goes to where the country needs specialists the most. These are education, engineering, natural sciences, the agricultural sector, rehabilitation and basic medical specialties. Higher coefficients are applied to these areas, due to which the size of the grant increases. According to him, higher education institutions from frontline regions also receive additional support.

Behind this logic lies the state’s desire to adjust the education market through financing instruments, and not only through declarations of the need for certain professions. Trofymenko actually admits that the state is already encouraging less areas where the labor market has long been overcrowded with graduates, and is investing more in specialties on which the country’s recovery, the functioning of medicine, schools, the technological sector and the rehabilitation system depend.

At the same time, the grant is tied to the educational trajectory, which is why transferring a student requires a separate review of the conditions. If a person changes universities without changing their specialty, the grant is retained. If it comes to switching to another direction, especially with a higher support coefficient for commercially popular programs, the mechanism no longer works automatically. The official’s explanations suggest that the state is not going to finance such a maneuver under the old conditions.

Entry for those who find themselves in more difficult circumstances

Trofymenko also spoke about applicants from temporarily occupied territories, military personnel, veterans and children of military personnel. He describes the ministry’s position as an aspiration to make access to education for these groups simpler and more supportive. For applicants from temporarily occupied territories, according to him, there are separate admission mechanisms and a network of educational centers, and for military personnel and veterans, the ministry is moving towards more flexible solutions in matters of training, restoration, retention of a place in an institution and scholarships.

The official links these decisions to the needs of people who are going through more difficult life circumstances and therefore need a different educational path. This approach fits into the more general course of the ministry, where higher education is considered a tool for returning to professional life, recovery and inclusion in society.

Budget places and changing educational priorities

Trofymenko separately dwells on the topic of budget places and rejects the interpretation that the state is simply reducing the classic state order. In his opinion, this is a correction within the framework of unfavorable demographic dynamics and redistribution of support to where the demand for personnel is really high. He includes law, management, economics and journalism among the specialties that the market has long perceived as oversaturated.

At the same time, according to him, greater emphasis is being placed on STEM areas, pedagogy, medicine, recovery and rehabilitation. That is, the ministry is trying to change not just the proportion of budget places, but also the logic of support itself: the state finances primarily those educational trajectories that have an obvious connection with the country’s needs in the conditions of war and future recovery.

However, this does not mean that popular areas have lost their attractiveness for entrants. The official admits that law, management and economics still remain among the most popular specialties, but they are already being squeezed by computer science, engineering, medicine, rehabilitation, psychology, pedagogy and construction. In this description, the entry market looks less monotonous than a few years ago, although the old favorites have not disappeared from it.

Why certain specialties will become more expensive

Trofimenko also explains the nuances of contract training. For popular mass specialties, the cost correction will continue, since for years the contract price there was lower than the real cost of training. The difference was covered by state funding for state-funded students, for whom the state paid the university more than contract students.

From this logic, it follows that popular specialties that have long remained relatively affordable will remain an area of ​​further price increases. Instead, where the state seeks to maintain or increase enrollment, the decisive factor is the availability of education, which is why such areas receive more budget places and work according to a different financial logic.

The official also clarifies the rules by which the university can review the cost of education. The law allows for indexing payments no more than once a year and only within the official consumer price index for the previous calendar year. Such a mechanism must be provided for in the contract. If it is not there, a unilateral change in conditions, according to his explanation, is not allowed. At the same time, for students with grants, there is an important safeguard: if the cost of education increases within the limits of indexation, then the amount of the grant increases proportionally.

Renewal of rectors and restructuring of the university network

The topic of consolidating higher education institutions and renewing leadership is part of a major restructuring. Trofimenko expects greater turnover in the positions of rectors and considers this process healthy for the system. In his interpretation, the university can no longer be a place of lifelong administration, where the head maintains influence for decades due to inertia, connections and the habit of the team to immutability.

The official describes the ideal type of modern university leader as a change manager who works with strategy, team, finances, international partners and the community, at the center of which the institution itself is often located. In this logic, the election of the rector should be a competition of development programs, a public conversation about the future of the university and a procedure based on the trust of the team, rather than on the backstage distribution of influence.

His explanations suggest that the renewal of the rectory has already become an irreversible process, supported by both legislative restrictions and a general course to change the management culture. This approach complements the consolidation of the network of universities, where fewer institutions should mean stronger content, a clearer strategy and a better capacity for development.

New security training instead of the old military model

Talking about military training, Trofymenko actually draws a line between the old idea of ​​university education and the new model that the ministry wants to introduce. This is not a traditional course related to combat training, but about training in national resistance skills that have practical value in wartime.

According to his explanation, students will study first aid, security, basic principles of defense and modern technologies. Such training, as described by the official, concerns a civilian who must have the knowledge and skills for real life during war. He specifically emphasizes that this is an educational component that does not create the status of a conscript, does not provide for an oath, a medical board, arrival at territorial recruitment centers, or obtaining a military registration specialty.

An important detail is the extension of this discipline to all applicants for higher and professional pre-higher education, regardless of gender. For students with special educational needs and for those whose religious beliefs make it impossible to use weapons, other trajectories of completing the course are provided. In this fragment of the interview, the ministry is trying to simultaneously emphasize the universality of security training and distinguish it from the forced militarization of the educational space.

How the war changed the map of student cities

Speaking about the geography of student life, Trofymenko acknowledges the strengthening of Lviv’s position and the growing prominence of Ivano-Frankivsk, but refuses to interpret this as Kharkiv losing its status as a powerful educational center. Despite security challenges, restrictions on offline learning, and difficult living conditions in the city, he believes that Kharkiv’s academic weight has been preserved.

The official supports this conclusion with impressions from trips to local institutions, where, according to him, student life turned out to be more active than in some central and western regions. The description of underground floors, classrooms, and laboratories shows Kharkiv as a city that, despite the war, is trying to maintain its role in higher education through adaptation to new conditions, rather than through a symbolic status from the past.

At the same time, according to his assessment, the greatest losses were suffered by front-line and relocated universities, while some institutions in safer regions received an increase in students. However, here too, Trofymenko suggests looking beyond geography: the number of students was influenced by the distance format, relocation, the reputation of the institution, and the ability of the management to quickly restructure the process.

Answering a question about different models of organizing education in the same city, the official explains that the conditions of a particular university are decisive. If there is shelter, a well-thought-out security model, and organizational capacity, the institution can operate in an classroom or in a mixed format. If such conditions are lacking, it remains online.

Trofymenko actually rejects the attempt to evaluate a university only by its address. For him, the difference is not determined by the city as such, but by the quality of internal management, infrastructure, and decisions that the institution is able to make in wartime.

New Demographics and Future Competition for Enrollees

The official also expressed his opinion on the demographics that should determine the future of the entire system. Trofimenko talks about the gradual decline in the number of students and offers a very simple way to understand the scale of this trend: look at how many children were born seventeen years ago. According to him, universities should plan their development within the framework of this new reality, and not live by ideas about past mass enrollments.

He does not support the overly alarming interpretations of some forecasts, which were reduced to very low figures after 2030, but he recognizes the main thing: competition for entrants will grow. Because of this, the system will no longer be able to rely on a signboard, a historical brand or the inertia of previous glory. The university will have to constantly prove its value to the student – through the quality of programs, learning conditions, reputation, connection with the labor market and the ability to offer a clear development trajectory.

According to Trofymenko, some institutions will face a very real risk of not recruiting full-fledged groups. Because of this, network modernization, consolidation, new management models and stronger supervisory boards are no longer a theoretical plan, but a response to inevitable changes. The university of the future, in his description, is not limited to one seventeen-year-old entrant after school.

The official believes that the system will increasingly work with adult students, short programs, retraining, veterans and people changing professions. Thus, the university is gradually turning into an institution of lifelong learning, where the classical bachelor’s degree remains an important part, but no longer exhausts the entire educational mission.

Separately, Trofymenko admits that part of the demographic decline can be compensated for by foreign students. In his presentation, this issue is related to internationalization, and to the income of institutions, and to the presence of Ukraine in the global educational space. However, he leaves the key to realizing this opportunity in the hands of the universities themselves, on which it depends whether they can become attractive to the external market.

According to Trofymenko, in ten years the Ukrainian university system should become more compact in terms of the number of signs, stronger in terms of content, more specialized where the logic of development requires it, and more competitive both inside the country and outside. In such a model, survival from one admission campaign to the next gives way to strategic development, where the university understands its place in the new demographics, new economy, and new security reality.