STATISTICAL TOOLS FOR INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF THE STATE OF THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The article is devoted to the development of tools for assessing the state of the external environment of higher education. The methodology of statistics and the theory of desirability by E. Harrington is used. The results of the analysis of scientific approaches of Ukrainian scientists to the definition of external environment factors and the construction of an integral indicator of the external environment of higher education in Ukraine are presented. A classification of the factors of the external environment of higher education institutions is proposed, dividing them into factors-opportunities and factors-threats. The most significant threats to the development of higher education are the following: potential number of entrants; economic instability and budget deficit, reduction of expenditures on education; level of solvency of the population; social situation in the conditions of war. Significant factors-opportunities include: quality and topics of higher education reform; labour market conditions in terms of demand for university graduates; international cooperation between universities, grant opportunities for universities and researchers. Depending on the correlation between the factors-threats and factors-opportunities, it is established that the state of the external environment can be favourable, neutral or unfavourable. Using E. Harrington's theory of desirability, a procedure for bringing the indicators of the external environment (opportunities and threats) to a single numerical scale is proposed. The sequence of determining the level of desirability of individual indicators of the external environment of the Ukrainian higher education system is presented. The model of an integral indicator of the external environment, the level of which depends on the balance of threats and opportunities, is substantiated. The results of assessing the integral indicator of the external environment of the system of higher education institutions of Ukraine in the academic year 2023/2024 are presented. It is concluded that in the period under study, threats prevailed over opportunities. The negative value of the integral indicator of the external environment in 2023/2024 indicates that it is unfavourable for the development of Ukrainian higher education institutions due to the social, political, economic and demographic consequences of a full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation.