Introduction. Currently, the question is being raised about the abolition of many elements of the education reform implemented over the past two decades in connection with Russia's desire to integrate with the European educational paradigm. It turned out that most of these innovations are not suitable for the domestic education system, which has had a detrimental effect on the quality of training specialists in higher education. In order to rectify the situation, a clear understanding of the direction in which to move now is necessary. Methods. Within the framework of the study, the results of which are presented in the article, a set of theoretical and empirical methods of cognition was used: analysis of sources, systematization and interpretation of the information received, comparative analysis of the identified positions of scientists, abstraction, synthesis, etc. Results. The problems that require solutions are divided into two groups. The first group includes organizational problems. Their solution does not depend on the desires and capabilities of universities, but they should be discussed, it is difficult since without it to make the right choice of the general direction of the upcoming new education reform. The author believes that its most important aspects are: increase in funding for universities; weakening bureaucratic regulation of the educational process and returning academic freedoms; stabilization of the content of taught disciplines; reduction of the workload of teachers. The second group includes problems arising in connection with the imposition of methods of work of a teacher with students recommended by official pedagogy on universities. Here are considered: ways to increase motivation for learning; orientation towards self-education; electiveness of learning; active introduction of various IT technologies into the educational process; distortions in the ratio of old and innovative methods. The author comes to the conclusion that the most important task of a university is the formation of a cultural and intellectual elite of society capable of making a significant contribution to the development of society, and not the training of a practice-oriented specialist