Features of image formation of higher education institutions to increase the rating in the market of educational services

The article identifies a significant deformation of education, which led to the opening of new edu¬cational institutions. The authors noted the change of priorities in the state regarding the image of knowledge and education. This article examines the problem of creating a positive image for higher education institutions; orientation of modern educational institutions on search, development, and application of managerial cognitive and artistic means of creating a positive image of educational institution, reflection in this image of internal, essential meanings, maintenance and tasks, features of its activity. The authors investigated certain shifts in the market of educational services, namely: increasing so¬ciety’s requirements for the quality of vocational education, constant updates of teaching technology, rapidly changing economic conditions of universities, intensification of competition in the market of educational services. All this causes the urgent problem of finding new sources of increasing the competitiveness of higher education, the basic indicator of which is the image. The authors consider approaches to rating higher education institutions. The most famous interna¬tional university rankings are analyzed. The theoretical and methodological approaches and the basic principles of university rankings are compared. Using cluster analysis to enhance the competitiveness of higher education institutions, expand their capabilities and take them to the next level. The cluster analysis was conducted to determine the activity of students, graduates, employees, employers in the life of the university, their awareness of the symbolism of the university. As the students are not part of the university, their answers were not taken into account. The technological chain of formation of public attitude to the HEA through event measures was also formed.