Implementation of the Bologna agreement, which now embraces all European countries, leads to an overhaul of national education systems. Anticipating the organized transition of Russian universities to the multilevel education model, it is highly relevant to analyze structural transformations of the higher education in the countries that initiated the Bologna process. The author studies the German experience, as the education system there is the most similar to the Russian one. Besides that, Germany has accumulated a vast experience of reforming the education system in accordance with the Bologna agreement, while intense educational and scientifi c ties between Germany and Russia stimulate a particular interest to the practices of the German higher school. The article considers all principal components of the reform: the three level system of higher education, the credit transfer, the European supplement to a diploma, double diplomas, and academic mobility.