In the current article the author is pushing forward a thesis that supporters and opponents of academic scholarships adhere to different paradigms of education: the western modernist paradigm of education and the Russian paradigm of the state of service class. According to the first one higher education is a right; according to the second — the duty which is imposed by the state and for the fulfillment of which the state is ready to pay. Modern post-soviet higher education system in Russia is an eclectic mix of elements of both models.