Classical university education facing the challenges of modernity

The article is devoted to the analysis of serious external and internal challenges that currently face higher education in Russia. External challenges are associated with new geopolitical realities that have significantly redefined the place of our country in the system of international relations, transformed its national and state interests and strategic goals, caused significant shifts in the functioning of the most important social institutions, one of which is higher education. The institution of higher education is the most important social institution subject to permanent transformation, and classical universities are the first to respond to the challenges that arise to the system of higher education as a whole. To the external challenges the author refers the exit from the Bologna system and the transition to a new national model of higher education, changes in Russia's economic infrastructure and labor market due to economic sanctions, which requires the training of qualified personnel, primarily for knowledge-intensive industries, and the development of “breakthrough” industrial technologies; digitalization of communication processes, including massive information and, especially, disinformation flows aimed especially, at students. These external challenges largely determine the internal challenges that take place within the institute of higher education and largely affect the structural components of its environment. These includes: digitalization of the educational process and attempts to introduce distance learning technologies too actively, not always thoughtfully; reorientation of the educational process to an applied function; staffing of the educational process; value transformation of the student community, which requires a revision of the existing model of academic interaction. The article analyzes the discussions that are underway about Russia's withdrawal from the Bologna system, and mainly not so much about the primitive essence of the Bologna system itself or about the optimal model of higher education, in relation to the current situation in Russia, as about its advantages lost for Russian students. An analysis of the digitalization of the educational process leading to value transformations among Russian students takes up enough space.