Bauman U. (the name is retained as a trademark) is in the midst of gut
wrenching changes.  Responding to the needs of the information age and to a new government and economy is a daunting task.  To do so in the face of a collapsed economy and education budget, globalization, and the change from a permanent war state to a consumer society, requires nothing short of a series of miracles.  In order to understand the magnitude of the task one must take a look backwards.

The scheme of higher education in the Soviet Union was fairly simple.  The state pays for the education of the student, including living expenses.  The student has a role in choosing the main area of his education (technology, arts, humanities, etc) but the university decides on his specialty and the government dictates his future employment.  Politics played a role in the system.  Influential parents, usually with Communist party ties, could help their children's education and careers.  Actual or potential enemies of the Communists had neither education nor careers.  Both my cousins were denied a higher education because of a suspect grandmother.  As Communism fell, so did its educational system.

The main difference between Soviet and democratic education systems lie in the role of money.  Money was not a major factor in Soviet education because there was little to buy.  Resources, including higher education, were allocated by the state on the basis of political, instead of market decisions.  In the free market system, with abundance of Russian and foreign consumer goods, money is everything.  With a collapsed economy the state has few resources for higher education.  Somebody else has to pick up the slack. That somebody is the student.

According to a recent survey almost half of Russian higher education students now attend private institutions of some kind, mostly trade schools of poor quality.  The half that attends public institutions now pays more for their education, legally or otherwise.  I find an amusing parallel in the financing of higher education between Russia and West Virginia.  In both cases the government charges little or no tuition for the students.  It is then left to the institutions to nickel -and -dime the students to distraction for the provision of necessary, optional, or mandated services, such as student fees.  In West Virginia these costs are up front and posted.  In Russia they frequently include bribes.

According to a much discussed recent survey commissioned by the World Bank an incredible twelve percent (low estimate) of the Russian gross domestic product is spent in bribes, much of it in the areas of health and education. This is a somewhat blatant example of a principle of public administration. If a government does not pay its employees a living wage, government services will be financed either by legal user fees or by illegal bribes. Moscow State U., the most prestigious university of Russia, has the reputation of being tainted by bribes from wealthy parents.  Bauman U., with its high admission standards and emphasis on mathematics, has the reputation of being the most honest and merit driven university in Russia.

How does an institution geared towards the defense (and space) priorities of a command economy adapt to a democratic society in a market driven consumer economy?  Educating to market demand would be highly expensive and radically alter the university.  Like all institutions Bauman's first priority is self-preservation.  Keep what you have to save the institution and change as you can in order to accommodate the students and their prospective employers.  Using its prestige and budget as a carrot it distributes and educates students largely according to university and departments needs. But as a university with a heart it gives students many loopholes and second chances.  To its graduates it offers a prestigious degree that serves as the basis of a career, though rarely in the specialty they toiled at for years.  To the Russian economy Bauman provides a reliable but expensive aptitude test.

How does Bauman serve its students?  Bauman students are a hardy lot.  Picked as the elite in math and physics admission tests they struggle through a six year obstacle course that includes a two-year fifteen hour a week higher math boot camp, and an insane schedule of 36 hours per week of lectures, which is mercifully not enforced.  Most of them receive the university bargain of "study for four (or 5) years what we want for free and for only two years at a modest cost we will let you study what you  (and the market) want."  In response they get by where they have to and concentrate their time, energy, and money where it will do them the most good:  a rational response by rational engineers.

How does Bauman rate with other world technical universities, with MIT, Caltech, the Paris Politechnique (X), or with one of my alma maters, the Berlin Technical U.?  I am neither able nor willing to engage in the usual quantified comparison of institutions.  Bauman would certainly lose out on indices dependent on money, such as salary of staff, research and publications, quality and maintenance of buildings, library and lab equipments, or even student amenities.  But I would apply an intangible, cross-cultural and cross- national, social science perspective, the ability to perform in any institution after an on-the job training period of couple of years.  From that perspective I will pit my Bauman students against all comers!
Some time ago I read a comparison between Russian education and the subject of a Mother Goose nursery rhyme about a little girl with a little curl.  As the rhyme goes, when the girl "was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was awful."  For most students, most of the time, a Bauman education is very, very good, and, even in the worst of cases, it is far from being awful.