Abstract:

The 21st century sets new trends in all spheres of life and all fields of science.The concept of LLL is stronger than ever:trainings, self-education and blogs have flooded numerous Internet resources. Now,the universities do not just compete among each other:they need to participate constantly in the race for prospective students. Many systems for evaluating the activities of universities have appeared lately. It has become important for the applicants to assess whether the university is in the top 100 - 200 - 500, whether it has prestigious accreditations, how many prominent scientists will teach the student during the period of study. The international aspect of education is of no small importance;today it is necessary and relevant to be able to train specialists under different cultural conditions and achieve the transformation of intercultural differences into cross-cultural tolerance. The notion of a "world-class university" is no longer just a term in scientific works, but a powerful instrument of promotion and positioning.

Thus, the question that has to be answered is how the universities could get close to the international standards of the teaching quality, research and training of professional staff, build their international reputation and strengthen their position among global universities.
The purpose of the comprehensive study is to evaluate the level of development of the university internationalization under the conditions of dynamically changing internationalization variables. The author identified the internationalization variables that characterize the university's activities in the following areas: finance, intercultural communications, integration of science, education, reputation. There are 21 of them; these variables also include the indicators forming the methodologies of the major international rankings.

Factor analysis was chosen as a research method. Factor analysis allows us subdividing an array of variables into a small number of factor groups. Several variables that have a tight correlation between each other and a weak correlation with other variables are combined in one factor.

To conduct the analysis, the authors involved experts possessing the following qualities: they occupy high positions in the field of education, combine research, administrative and teaching activities, are related to the internationalization of education and are aware of the changing situation in the internal and external environment of educational institutions.

As a result of the factor analysis carried out, a matrix of correlation coefficients has been obtained. They characterize the coupling density between the variables of the original data files. The structuring of the obtained data made possible to identify the most revealing factors for increasing the level of internationalization of the university: diversification of financial revenues, financial investments in the development of students, the level of intercultural development of the university, the university's reputation, the level of competence of prospective students, the demand for graduates, transparency, the level of publication activity and the developed level of infrastructure.

Thus, for the successful competition of universities in the transnational educational space, it is necessary to strengthen the financing of science and education, to stimulate the system of management and quality of programs, to develop the infrastructure and to maintain a reputation.

Keywords:

Internationalization, world-class university, factor analysis, cross-cultural communications, federal university, LLL.