This work is devoted to the development of higher education in Russia at the late XIX and early XX century. Changes in the socio-economic life of the country, especially the needs of the emerging industrial production, the emerging shoots of capitalist relations in agriculture, the complexity of the administrative structure of the country demanded the education of young people. The beginning of XX century was a time of intense social, economic, political and cultural development of Russia and equally rapid development of the national high school. In the late XIX and early XX centuries became a question about the need for reform of higher education. Revolutionary and liberal-minded professors, as well as public figures and journalists widely discussed the problems and contradictions in the development of higher education of the Russian Empire. They were so obvious that the authorities were forced to take some measures at least for the "pacification of public opinion". Requests to increase allocations to universities repeatedly been made to the government and the State Duma, but the deputies rejected their hard. An important feature of the development of higher education in Russia of the early twentieth century became active development of alternative higher education, received in those years called "non-governmental". The first of these universities have appeared in the 1860s. The Revolution of 1905 gave rise to "non-governmental" higher education. The emergence of alternative higher school was a reflection of the views of a certain part of the Russian intelligentsia, entrepreneurs and philanthropists who are not satisfied by existing restrictions reception, organization and content of the educational process at state universities, lack of training for a variety of specialties.
