The article considers the process of formation of student contingents of higher professional educational institutions of the Lower Volga region in the 1930s. The forms and methods of organizing admission campaigns are analyzed, the role of party-state structures and public organizations in this process is revealed. The authors analyze the regulatory framework for the organization of student recruitment to universities which is highly potential for actualization in modern conditions. The authors compare the directive quantitative indicators of the first student contingents with the real capabilities of the institutes. The problems that arose in the process of organizing the first admission campaigns to recruit students to universities of different profiles are revealed. The use of data from a wide range of sources of the periodical press, business correspondence and internal documents, party and state resolutions allowed us to conclude that the mechanisms of interaction of party-state structures and public organizations with universities on the studied issue were highly effective. Among the effective methods of work on the organization of admission campaigns to universities were: agitation propaganda, strict control by party structures, delineation of administrative responsibility, establishment of different terms of admission to universities of different profiles, introduction of planning for the approval of control figures and unified admission rules. It is noted that at the first stages for the newly formed institutions, the control admission figures established by the People's Commissariats did not comply with their real capabilities. This resulted in the development of new forms of cooperation between universities and public organizations and enterprises of the region, aimed at implementing the party-state tasks for the proletarization of higher education.
