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Matrimonial universities: students' families will receive a priority right to a dormitory
It is proposed to consolidate the priority right for "family" students to receive a dorm room at the federal level. Such a bill should be submitted to the State Duma on April 24 by the Committee on Youth Policy. Currently, about 60% of students would like to get married and have children, but they mostly do not have a place to live with family members, the authors of the document note. Currently, universities make the decision to provide separate rooms to student families on their own, based on local regulations. But experts point out that providing dormitories alone is not enough — this measure should be complemented by the creation of infrastructure at universities, for example, nurseries, mother and child rooms, and feeding rooms. The information about what other measures to help students the bill contains is in the Izvestia article.
Non-single people are provided with a hostel
Today, only 3.3% of students are married, although, according to surveys, about 60% would like to start a family, according to data from the Institute for the Study of Childhood, Family and Upbringing, which are presented in the explanatory note to the bill. If adopted, student families will receive a priority right to housing and will be able to live in it, even if the spouses study at different universities, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Youth Policy Artyom Metelev told Izvestia.
Currently, the grounds for recognizing students in need of a dormitory are fixed in local legal acts of universities. This "may lead to a violation of the rights of certain groups of students," says the explanatory note. The authors of the document noted that the methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Education and Science of September 5, 2023 suggest the allocation of separate housing for student families, but do not assign students a preferential right to receive it.
"The bill changes this principle to a more socially oriented one: residential accommodation in a dormitory becomes free only in the absence of needy family students," the document says.
According to the amendments, the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education will control the issue of living quarters in dormitories.
The Ministry of Education and Science has no comments or suggestions on the bill, according to a letter from the department to the committee's office (Izvestia has it).
Additionally, they reported that the Russian Ministry of Education and Science monitors measures to support student families every six months. According to the latest such monitoring (conducted in February 2025), more than 25,700 student families study at universities, 5,615 of them with children. But only 2,340 families and more than 1,100 students who raise children alone live in dormitories.
Sergei Chesnokov, director of the Demographic Strategies Research and Application Center at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, is confident that the initiative to provide student families with dormitory housing will have a priority effect on strengthening the institution of marriage and raising the birth rate. But the expert noted that this measure alone is not enough.
"It should be complemented by a large—scale infrastructure: nurseries, mother and child rooms, feeding rooms, and psychological support services should be created at universities," he said.
At the same time, demographer Elena Egorova noted that the economic situation in the country has a huge impact on the formation of families, and called the allocation of dorm rooms to student families only one of the support measures, whereas, in her opinion, a whole range of them is needed.
At the same time, another support measure, in particular, was developed by the Ministry of Labor on behalf of the President of Russia. In January 2025, the agency put up for public discussion a bill in which the maternity allowance for female students would be calculated depending on the subsistence level in the regions. Thus, the amount of the allowance in different regions of the Federation can range from 74,900 to 235,400 rubles.
What do universities think?
The university representatives interviewed by Izvestia reacted to the initiative in different ways.
— According to the law, places are provided as a matter of priority to orphaned students, students with disabilities of the first and second groups, disabled since childhood or as a result of military trauma. It seems impractical to expand this circle, especially without increasing the number of places in dormitories," said Boris Padalkin, Acting Rector of Stankin Moscow State Technical University.
And the rector of the State Academic University of Humanities, Nikolai Promyslov, said that the university supports the proposed measure of support for student families.
"Modern economic realities, especially high rental prices in Moscow, make student dormitories an affordable opportunity for young families to stay together and focus on their studies," he said. — The support of such students is a contribution not only to their personal well—being, but also to the strengthening of family values in Russian society.
The lack of their own housing can become a serious obstacle to starting a family and even more so to having children in such a marriage, Olga Rybakova, associate professor of the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law at the O.E. Kutafin Moscow State Law University, admitted.
"The proposed bill will create the most comfortable conditions for students who combine education with family responsibilities," she believes.
Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University did not evaluate the proposal, but reported that about 10,000 students live on its campus, including 14 young families.
"Couples are provided with a separate living space, all requests have been met," said Vyacheslav Olshevsky, director of the SPbPU campus. — With an increase in the number of families of students, we are ready to provide separate rooms.
The bill establishes the obligation for universities to "ensure the openness and accessibility of information about the number of individual residential premises in the dormitory", designated for living with families.
"The publicity of this information will make the availability of such facilities an advantage of the educational organization for already married applicants or just planning a family," the explanatory note says.
Lack of places in dormitories
As of September 2023, about 13% of those in need were not provided at universities with housing, which is about 128 thousand full—time students, it was reported in the explanatory note.
— There are always more people who want to get a hostel than there are places, said Artyom Metelev. — It is important that the rules for their provision are transparent and understandable to every student. For this purpose, clear criteria of need will be approved at the federal level.
Thus, universities will be able to terminate the employment contract if a student has not appeared for more than three months without a valid reason.
— According to preliminary estimates, this will free up tens of thousands of places that are currently occupied by "dead souls" — instead of them, students in real need, as well as children who live far away, will be able to apply for housing, - said the deputy.
The amendments will create a single basic approach to the procedure for providing places in dormitories, including determining the need for housing, and will create conditions for improving the efficiency of using places in dormitories, which will provide housing to the largest number of people in need, the authors of the document emphasize.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Education and Science with a request to inform how many places are missing in university dormitories.
Last summer, Minister of Education and Science Valery Falkov, at an expanded joint meeting of the State Duma committees on Science and Higher Education and on control, proposed providing dormitories to poor or students in difficult situations.
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