The rector of the Higher School of Economics, Yaroslav Kuzminov, is often compared with the rector of the RSUSU Yuri Afanasyev. In the early 90s, their universities quickly went uphill and took leading positions in their educational niches of economic and humanitarian, respectively, and the rectors themselves gained a reputation as the reformers of education.

The comparison, however, is not quite accurate. In the late 80s, Yuri Afanasyeva knew the whole country: being the rector of the Historical and Archive Institute, he became a deputy, supported Boris Yeltsin, for which he received the building of the Higher Party School and the powder of the powers at that time. Nobody knew Yaroslav Kuzminov ten years ago, his name now does not tell people who did not know about economic education. A graduate of economy faculty of Moscow State University, a teacher, an employee of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences did not stand out. However, at the age of 35, he suddenly becomes the rector of a state university, to whom the authorities generously allocate money and give real estate. The prestigious foreign universities from Harvard to the Sorbonne begin to cooperate with the Higher School of Economics, venerable liberal economists become its professors, and the members of the government give lectures to students. At the same time, the rector himself remains a candidate of sciences and assistant professor - an unprecedented case in the practice of higher education ...

In the first years of existence about the HSE, few knew. However, in 1995, when the first issues of the masters took place, they spoke about it in the press, in the teaching environment, and in business circles. The reason was the amazing success of graduates in the labor market, the rapid development of their careers ensured not only the connections acquired during their studies, but also knowledge and skills. Already in 1996, to the question of which university graduates are preferable to hire, HR managers often called HSE. Despite the fact that the school was designed to train managerial economists, not business managers. Someone includes HSE in the top three leaders, someone in five or ten. However, there are ratings where HSE does not occupy a leading position - Kuzminov himself admits that in recent years, other economic universities have made a break forward. Five years ago, when I met Kuzminov, the “rector-organizer” showed on his business card. In the office littered by books, yesterday’s faculty teacher of Moscow State University confidently set out Napoleonic plans. It was hard to believe, despite the state status and state support, which Kuzminov was especially proud of (after perestroika, the new economic universities were entirely private). But HSE became the university, retained both the support of the state and international relations, opened the humanitarian faculties, and strengthened the already stringent requirements for admission and in the process of study.

However, the organizer of the school to this day remains in the shadow of larger figures pushing the young Yaroslav Ivanovich to the background. For example, in a booklet on Russian -French educational projects, which a couple of years ago was distributed to journalists at a reception at the French Embassy, in the School of Economics section it was that the President of the Higher School of Economics is Alexander Shokhin, the chairman of the academic council is Yevgeny Yasin and that Yakov Urinson teaches at the school. The name of the rector was not mentioned at all.

Education from the contrary

“Where did Kuzminov come from”, his colleagues-recreationalists either find it difficult to say, or call the names of all the same influential economists who, in their opinion, “promoted him upstairs.” In fact, before the appointment of the rector, he knew only Evgeny Yasin an employee of the Central Economic and Mathematics Institute, who worked at a half-stage a teacher of statistics at the Economic Power of Moscow State University. Both dreamed of creating an economic college where students would study the economy not on Marx. Yasin recalls how they met in the square on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya, opposite the Frunze Academy, and discussed this promising idea.

“This is in Soviet times in order to advance, it was necessary to have a patronage, Yasin argues. “And he is one of those young people who advanced during the years of reform without someone’s support.” Yasin believes that Kuzminova raised the economic environment in which he was rotated since childhood. Obviously, the upbringing was from the contrary. His father, a prominent Soviet economist Ivan Kuzminov, was in charge of the Department of Political Economy at the Academy of Public Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee (“The most orthodox economists of the Institute of Economics were liberals compared to his dad,” Yasin notes). In the attic of the Kuzminov dachas near Moscow, books on Marxist political economy were dumped. The editor -in -chief of the newspaper Today Mikhail Berger recalls how, several years ago, having arrived at Kuzminov, he took out the first book from the attic, opened at random and read there that rotting the main economic law of capitalism.

At Moscow State University, Kuzminov was engaged in problems that did not lose scientific value after perestroika - the history of the national economy and economic teachings. For several years he led the economic and mathematical school for high school students, worked in the Komsomol Committee and in the Council of Young Scientists there he met with the future chairman of the government Yegor Gaidar and the future deputy minister of education Alexander Asmolov. In 1989, Kuzminov went to the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences Leonid Abalkin, where a year later he became the head of the sector of complex historical and economic research. “I consider him my teacher, Kuzminov recalls about Abalkin.

He promoted young guys and allowed them to criticize themselves. ”

Working with Abalkin, Kuzminov for two years was one of the directors of the Cultural Initiative Foundation George Soros, where he was responsible for education support projects. Then he was looking for a university where it would be possible to teach Western economic theory. The Economic Facricult of Moscow State University refused, and Kuzminov opened an alternative department of economic theory at the Moscow Physics and Technical Institute (IFTI)-the liberal rector was favorably reacted to the innovation. The entire stream “Orthodoxs” went to the department to Kuzminov left without students, and the Phystekhovsky party committee complained to the Central Committee. As a result, Kuzminov was rolled out of the MIPT, but he did not lose heart and after some time opened the interfacial department with the same name at the Physics and Film Figure faculty of Moscow State University. There, the story repeated, and Kuzminov with Yasin, who then already worked in the Leonid Abalkin economic reform commission, began to break through the decision to open the economic college. Decree No. 917 “On the creation of the Higher School of Economics” was the last resolution of Yegor Gaidar as prime minister in 1992.

Liberal manager

The idea of creating HSE, in addition to Gaidar, was supported by Viktor Chernomyrdin and Ministers of Science and Education, all kinds of officials from the government and the presidential administration. HSE began to work in the midst of universal euphoria when liberalization became the basis of state ideology. And the appointment of a new university, training for liberal reforms met the interests of politicians. Kuzminov recalls that

At first, rector of old economic universities opposed the school, but its anti -marksist spirit was shared by the leaders of technical universities: “The normal techist does not tolerate political economy to spirit. Once you cannot count, it means that this is not a science. ”

Kuzminov attracted the best economists in different directions to the school. Among the invited were nearby Sergey Glazyev and Yegor Gaidar. Professors also adhered to various views. There were cases when some teachers demanded to dismiss others, for example, Igor Lipsitsa for criticism of privatization. “The only criterion by which Kuzminov selected people, professionalism,” says Evgeny Yasin. Unlike other universities in the Higher School, there were no ballast of professor professors, through the word of the remembering Marx.

Kuzminov built a university, focusing on Western samples: Russian and English school languages. Curriculum and programs here are compiled on the model of leading world universities. Learning scheme - 4 years plus 2 (a bachelor's diploma and master, respectively, a break between the end of the undergraduate and entering the magistracy) is possible. The first three years in undergraduate studies have been studying the “basic block” of disciplines, the remaining year has been on specialization (the term of specialization at some faculties can be extended up to two years, and then graduates receive a specialist’s specialist’s diploma of five -year higher education in the USSR). You can enter the magistracy of the Higher School with a bachelor's diploma or a specialist of any state university.

On the other hand, Kuzminov paid tribute to the traditions of Soviet mathematical education. Even at the newly open Faculty of Political Science, HSE is studying the highest mathematics. It needs to be taken and to enter the magistracy. Kuzminov compares his graduates with graduates of strong technical universities: “Both of them are reliable people. If they studied, gnawed this granite - they will work more than effectively. ”

Over time, HSE has become a very successful commercial project - the prices for training at the paid department are quite high here (at the Faculty of Economics $ 3,750 a year, at the legal - 4,500, in the International College of Economics and Finance at the Higher School of Economics, working together with the London School of Economics - $ 3,000). However, Kuzminov reduced the price for those who did not go to the free department by short of one or two points (50 and 30 percent discount, respectively). Discounts are given in the first years of training and resumed if the student is studying well. So the system of paid education was “optimized” - students have an incentive to study better. “The money that we earn is primarily goes to the equipment of the audience and the purchase of books in the library,” says the Rector of the Higher School of Economics.

Kuzminov is proud that the government officials of the highest rank are happy to give their children to his university. For children of state -owned employees of the Higher School of Economics, the Blat was actually legalized. According to the decision of the Academic Council, if the children of the HSE teachers or responsible employees of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Economy and the apparatus of the Government of the Russian Federation do not collect points (and do not receive deuces), the school teaches them for free (due to extra -budgetary funds). According to Kuzminov, there are few of them, 10 - 15 people annually. In general, many strong worlds of CERO in the HSE give their children, for example, the children of Anatoly Chubais, Alexander Zhukov, Sergey Dubinin, Viktor Khristenko and other famous politicians study. Kuzminov says that the recently Open Faculty of Law of the Higher School of Economics is especially popular: “I see what people send their children there.”

Yaroslav Ivanovich loves to emphasize that his university works according to state standards and does not chase light earnings on fashionable, but not worked out and not recognized Ministry of Education with programs. For example, only from next year the MVA program will appear in the HSE - Master of Business Administration. The opening of a business school at the Higher School of Economics is scheduled for September this year and coincides with the state recognition of MBA. When asked why HSE did not open this program earlier and did not issue a non -state diploma when other universities actively did it, Kuzminov contemptuously remarked: "Others let them give out."

It was the Higher School of Economics that became the head university in the presidential program for retraining of personnel for the national economy (training managers in Russian universities for budget money, followed by sending foreign funds abroad), and Kuzminov himself with the nearest associates developed its maintenance. Why did the program get into HSE? But because it is "the most government university." Kuzminov generally attracted many international projects in the Higher School of Economics, for example, the EU project for the economic education of schoolchildren. The most popular school textbooks on economics were written by his colleagues, including the first vice -rector Lev Lyubimov.

In contrast, say, from Moscow State University, where the autonomy of faculties is great, the power of the rector in the Higher School is close to the absolute. Both his colleagues and the students have repeatedly told me that Kuzminov is overly arrogant (“cheeks puffs”), and write off it on his youth. "" Pon] Comrade Has he, show-off! " The familiar student of HSE was indignant. A chic cabinet, overshadowed by the Russian flag, a government connection on the table, cabinets in the entire wall, in one of which a folder with the inscription "oligarchs". However, the same people talk about the tolerance of the rector, his habit of listening to various opinions. Kuzminov himself admits that he always tries to maintain neutrality: "If the rector is neutral, then the university is perceived as neutral, and I have the opportunity to invite different people here." However, once he changed this principle.

"Neutral figure"

In the summer of 1997, the Ministry of Education began the struggle between the moderate (they were represented by Minister Vladimir Kinelev) and the radicals (at the head of them were his deputy Alexander Asmolov and Alexander Tikhonov). The radicals offered the structural and economic reform of the educational system, the moderate preferred to leave everything as it is. Asmolov easily persuaded Kuzminov to enter his analytical group (the conversation took place in the village near Moscow, where their cottages are located). Kuzminov became the first post -Soviet economist who seriously engaged in the education economy. Asmolov and Tikhonov called him Yaroslav Wise. The term “organizational and economic reform” was called the “Asmolov” concept invented by Kuzminov. The ideas of rationalization of the scholarship fund (out of five students, the scholarship receives one, but large), the per capita financing of the school (how many students at the school go there so much money there), he also developed “transparent” transfers and others. Having considered the shadow cash flows in education, Kuzminov proposed legalizing the money that the parents of the students bring “from the black move”. Work in the Asmolov group gave Kuzminov the opportunity to become famous outside the ministries and departments. However, the alphabet served the Higher Service to the rector of the Higher School: in the list of the authors of the concept, he turned out to be the penultimate one, and only a narrow circle of people learned about his key role in creating the concept.

After the concept began to trample the State Duma, Kuzminov decided to prudently retreat. At a press conference arranged in the HSE building, he convinced the journalists that there were no conflicts in the leadership of the Ministry of Education, that Asmolov and Kinelov are best friends, that the official and alternative doctrines of reforms could be combined. Kuzminov was in a hurry to take a neutral position in the conflict, waiting for who would win.

Together with the representative of the "Kinel" team, Vladimir Shadrikov, the Rector of the Higher School of Economics processed the "Asmolov" concept. However, when Kinelev was still retired, Kuzminov, one of the first to congratulate Tikhonov on the new appointment, prepared some draft reform decisions. However, very soon Tikhonov and Asmolov began to pursue failures at the rallies of the teacher and professor opposed the reforms, the projects of the innovations refused to approve the State Duma and the Union of Rectors. Understanding that Tikhonov’s days were numbered as the minister, Kuzminov began to appear less often in the Ministry of Education ... Asmolov believes that, engaged in the education economy, Kuzminov did not see the ideological essence of the reforms of its anti -Soviet pathos, without which the concept would cease to be such. Kuzminov, on the other hand, adopted the radicalism of the reformers. “From the very beginning I did not like that they imposed an ideology,” he recalls. That is why, when the rector of RUDN, Vladimir Filippov, became the Minister of Education, who promised to achieve a consensus in educational policy, Kuzminov became his closest adviser. The HSE rector enthusiastically speaks of the idea of re -licensing of private universities, which is now conducting the leadership of the Ministry of Education: “Every fool can get a license and teach. This decomposes our education, turns it into a mockery of people. ” The idea of tough state control in education is much closer to Yaroslav Ivanovich than the liberal projects of Asmolov.

Kuzminov, however, goes further and talks about state universities, where there are faculties of economics, management and law: “These are specialties of marketing success and hype demand. It is necessary to overlord all educational institutions where there are such specialties. It is necessary to cut off - half or two -thirds of universities that trade with diplomas who, in their personnel composition, cannot teach economics and management, where one and a half teachers and two books. They began to teach, because it is more profitable than the trade in bananas ... I do not need such freedom! ” Kuzminov believes that it is necessary to create a public council, “every year updated so that bribes do not take”, which will determine who has the opportunity to teach. It is difficult to say how many universities, especially in the regions, will survive after such an “examination” and what will happen to their students. It is also not clear where the applicants who have not passed the competition in the remaining universities or have not scored money are also going to enter the paid department there. The idea of tightening licensing rules is also a kind of radicalism, which is fundamentally contrary to the principles of liberal reform.

Having abandoned the compromise of economic science and Marxism ten years ago, Kuzminov quite accepts political compromises. For all the time of work in the Higher School, he was considered the favorite of all the ministers of education and the “moderate” Kinelev, and the “reformer” of Tikhonov, and close to the Communists Filippov. The political flexibility of the rector of the Higher School of Economics, the connection in power structures and the competence in economic problems (the field of his scientific interests, the institutional economy) make Kuzminov a very promising candidate for higher state posts. A year ago, one of his colleagues said that he was about to go up and with equal success can lead one of the three ministries of economics, education or labor. Yaroslav Ivanovich himself recently said that some tempting proposals were really acting, but he did not find the strength to abandon the university. The post, probably, was offered not so high, and the time to go into power is clearly not the best. Having gained experience and expanding communications, the rector of the Higher School of Economics has every chance to declare itself in big politics.