Manifest and Latent Functions of Educational Migration in Case of European Students in Russia

The emergence of the Bologna educational system has given new opportunities for student's educational tours. Currently, students are not limited to get education only in their own country and prefer to gain international experience, taking advantage of exchange programs, internships, double degree programs and so on. The main goal of such programs, according to the main principles of the Bologna system, is the creation of a uniform European educational space, which ensures compatibility of all educational sectors and a unified credit system for accounting academic work laboriousness. All this factors promote association of efforts on creation of the unified academic environment and the close cooperation of scientists all over the Europe. This work is dedicated to identification of manifest and latent functions of educational migration. The starting point of the study was the question whether gaining education and developing of academic ties are the only motives for educational trips abroad? Results of research show that besides obvious educational function, the international educational tours have also a set of latent (hidden) functions. The research is focused on studding the whole process of European students’ educational migration: starting from the decision-making process, goals and expectations, exploring of all aspects of activities in the process of time being in Russia and finishing with the assessment of the experience and recommendations for improvement. It could be quite useful for understanding the motivation of European students when applying for international programs, and also for developing an effective plan for involving more foreign students to Russian universities.