A Comparison of Agricultural Higher Education in Russia and the United States

As the internationalization of universities has grown in importance, there is an increasing number of cooperative programsbetweenU.S.universitiesandthoseinothercountries.To have the most effective programs, it is important to have an understanding of the differences between the respective higher education systems. With the disintegration of the former Soviet Union there has been an increasing interest in collaborating with higher education institutions in Russia and other countries of the newly independent states. A comparison of U.S. agricultural higher education and that of Russia shows substantial differences in operation and educational philosophy. Since the higher education systems of the newly independent states were modeled after the Russian system, these comparisons provide a basicunderstandingoftheagriculturalhighereducationsystem in all of the newly independent states. The objectives of this paper are to (i) compare the structure of agricultural higher education in the USA and Russia, (ii) highlight the differences in the two systems, and (iii) identify aspects of each system that couldstrengtheneachother.Althoughchangeshaveoccurredin theRussiansystem,additionalchangesmightinclude:permitindividual universities to set their own student/faculty ratios, determine student enrollment, charge tuition to all students, and grant them freedom to develop their own curricula.