Volume 4, Issue 2, June 2014, 75-86 International Review of Social Research Before Massifcation: Access to University Education in Ukraine in 1950s-1980s Historical and social background of the higher education system in Soviet Ukraine The policy of the USSR in the area of education in general and higher education in particular usually meets positive evaluation. During the Soviet period, illiteracy among the population was almost entirely eradicated, and the number of people with higher education increased dramatically. ‘The Soviets are prouder of their advances in education than of almost any other achievement since the Bolshevik Revolution’ (Jacoby, 1971:37). In 1915, the Russian Empire with its 160 million population had 105 higher education institutions with a total number of enrolled students of 127,400. By the end of the frst fve year plan (1931-1932), the Soviet Union had more than 700 higher education institutions with 406,000 students enrolled. The most signifcant trend in the rising number of higher educational institutions and students could be identifed during the 1930s Abstract: My paper sets to analyze the Soviet policy on access to higher education during the last four decades of existence of the USSR, with a particular focus on the Ukrainian case. It includes the analysis of discourses on planned economy and central regulations regarding access to universities, and a discussion on offcial and unoffcial benefts (Russian original ‘blat’) during the admission process. The fndings led to the conclusion that the number of students, which increased four point four times between 1950 and 1990, was less signifcant per 100,000 people; thus, generally speaking, access to university education continued to be rather restrictive in social terms. This was one of the main causes of the slow development of Soviet Ukraine in scientifc and technological areas. Keywords: students, university, access to education, benefts, planned economy. Sergiy KURBATOV • Institute of Higher Education, National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Uppsala, Sweden © University of Bucharest, June 2014 • e-mail:sergiy.kurbatov@gmail.com and sergiy.kurbatov@ucrs.uu.se. Sergiy Kurbatov, PhD, senior researcher at Institute of Higher Education, National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine & affliated researcher at Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, University of Uppsala, Sweden. Research areas of interests: history of university, university rankings, transformation of university mission, philosophy of time. NTERNATIONAL REVIEW of SOCIAL RESEARCH I IRSR