Vocational training option

Upon completion of a nine-year programme the student has a choice of either completing the remaining two years at normal school, or of a transfer to a specialized professional training school. Historically, those were divided into low-prestige PTUs and better-regarded technicums and medical (nurse level) schools; in the 2000s, many such institutions have been renamed to colleges. They provide students with a working skill qualification and a high school certificate equivalent to 11-year education in a normal school; the programme, due to its work training component, extends to 3 years. In 2007–08 there were 2,800 such institutions with 2,280,000 students.

All certificates of secondary education (Maturity Certificate, Russian: аттестат зрелости), regardless of issuing institution, conform to the same state standard and are considered, at least by law, to be fully equivalent. The state prescribes minimum (and nearly exhaustive) set of study subjects that must appear in each certificate.

Unified state examinations

Traditionally, the universities and institutes conducted their own admissions tests regardless of the applicants' school record. There were no uniform measure of graduates' abilities; marks issued by high schools were perceived as incompatible due to grading variances between schools and regions. In 2003 the Ministry of Education launched the Unified state examination (USE) programme. The set of standardised tests for high school graduates, issued uniformly throughout the country and rated independent of the student's schoolmasters, akin to North American SAT, was supposed to replace entrance exams to state universities. Thus, the reformers reasoned, the USE will empower talented graduates from remote locations to compete for admissions at the universities of their choice, at the same time eliminating admission-related bribery, then estimated at 1 billion US dollars annually. A few higher education establishments are still allowed to introduce their own entrance tests in addition to USE scoring; such tests must be publicized in advance.

The first nation-wide USE session covering all regions of Russia was held in the summer of 2008. 25.3% students failed literature test, 23.5% failed mathematics; the highest grades were recorded in French, English and society studies. Twenty thousand students filed objections against their grades; one third of objections were settled in the student's favor.

Tertiary (university level) education

According to a 2005 UNESCO report, more than half of the Russian adult population has attained a tertiary education.

As of the 2007–2008 academic year, Russia had 8.1 million students enrolled in all forms of tertiary education (including military and police institutions and postgraduate studies). Foreign students accounted for 5.2% of enrollment, half of whom were from other CIS countries. 6.2 million students were enrolled in 658 state-owned and 450 private civilian university-level institutions licensed by the Ministry of Education.

The number of state-owned institutions was rising steadily from 514 in 1990 to 655 in 2002 and remains nearly constant since 2002. The number of private institutions, first reported as 193 in 1995, continues to rise. The trend for consolidation began in 2006 when state universities and colleges of Rostov-on-Don,Taganrog and other southern towns were merged into Southern Federal University, based in Rostov-on-Don; a similar conglomerate was formed in Krasnoyarsk as Siberian Federal University; the third one emerged in Vladivostok as Far Eastern Federal University. Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University acquired the federal university status in 2007 without further organisational changes.