Economic, social, demographic, ideological, and political instability in Ukraine has become the cause of a whole range of socio-economic problems in higher education. It requires studying their composition, interdependence, and impact on higher education. Nowadays different ranges of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine are being discussed in the literature. Despite a large number of publications, the systematization of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine is not given due attention. For a better idea of their composition, interdependence, and focus, it is useful to systematize them and develop their catalogue. The purpose of the study is to identify approaches to systematization and classification of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine. Methodology. The following theoretical methods of socio-economic phenomena and processes learning as abstract-logical (methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, analogy, generalization, comparison, system-structural, abstraction), content analysis, empirical research (description and comparison), systematization of scientific knowledge were used in research. To systematize socio-economic problems in higher education, their catalogue was developed, on the basis of which these problems were directly systematized and classified. Results. The major socio-economic problems and contradictions in higher education in Ukraine, as well as in European countries and the United States, were determined and analysed in the given study. The analysis of the recent studies and publications on socioeconomic problems in higher education showed that there are currently no proposals for the formation of their single system. On the basis of research, the catalogue containing forty-one most important socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine has been developed. For the visual representation of the system of problems and causal relationships between them, a conceptual map has been proposed. For that, the problems that are directly related to the purpose of the study are selected from the catalogue. As an example, a conceptual map of socio-economic problems caused by inadequate funding for higher education, as well as problems linked with the formation and maintaining its principal resource – academic staff – was developed. To classify the socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine, a 3×3 matrix is proposed, in which problems in higher education are grouped depending on the place of their manifestation and the place of solution. The places of manifestation and places of the solution are defined as: a sphere of higher education, other spheres, a sphere of higher education, and other spheres simultaneously. It allows us to identify the problems, solution to which society puts on higher education only, and those that require joint efforts. Distribution of problems by the determined features identifies their targeting and the degree of responsibility of the higher education system for their solution. The practical relevance of the given study is to provide further research on the state of higher education and problems of its functioning. The approaches proposed to the systematization and classification of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine can be applied to other countries as well.

When considering the problems of the educational services market formation and functioning in higher education, most authors attribute the emergence of this market to fundamental political and economic changes in Ukraine in the early 1990s and its transition to a market economy. This approach is limited as the market for educational services has existed before. In the process of market expansion into public spheres in Ukraine in the last decade of the 20th century, it got a generally completed form, although its formation has not yet ended and continues to transform. Over the past hundred and fifty years, the socio-economic system in Ukraine has changed three times: the second half of the 19th century – the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the beginning of the 20th century – the transition from capitalism to socialism, the beginning of the 21st century – the reverse transition from socialism to capitalism. The educational services market is one of the components of a market system of the country as a whole. The nature of socio-economic relations, of course, influenced the formation and functioning of the educational services market in higher education, which was under various factors affecting it in different socio-economic and institutional conditions. Therefore, this study considers three main historical stages of the formation of this market, each corresponding to a certain socio-economic system: - development of the educational services market in higher education of Ukraine in the late 19th-early 20th centuries at the stage of formation and rise of capitalism; - functioning of the deformed educational services market in higher education of the Ukrainian SSR after the victory of the socialist revolution and in the Soviet Union era; - widescale introduction of market relations in higher education of modern Ukraine during the period of democratic transformations, changes in the socio-economic and political system, the abandonment of socialism and the return to the capitalist system. This approach, unlike most of those presented in modern Ukrainian economic literature, covers the entire historical period, in which there was a market for educational services in Ukraine’s higher education. To ascertain the peculiarities and the characteristics of the market, at each stage the presence and development of its main elements should be determined. Those elements, as a rule, include goods, demand, supply, competition, and prices for goods or services. At all stages, the principal stimulator for the formation of the educational services market in higher education in Ukraine was the chronic underfunding of state higher education institutions. The dissatisfied demand of the population for higher education was also a significant factor in the formation and development of the educational services market. The market for educational services in higher education became developed after Ukraine had gained independence. Commercialization of educational services in higher education, the creation of private higher education institutions, the corresponding institutional transformations, and the legislative framework formation were typical for this stage. As a general scientific basis of the research, a dialectical method of analysis of socio-economic processes was applied. For the theoretical part of the study, historical-logical and abstract-logical methods were used, which allowed determining the key factors that caused the emergence of the educational services market in higher education of Ukraine, as well as to study the evolution of ideas about it. As the information base of the study, a set of legislative and normative acts of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, as well as some research works of domestic and foreign scientists concerning various aspects of the formation of the educational services market in higher education were used. For quantitative assessment of the market relations spread in higher education, statistical methods were used to process both complete and selective information. The basis of our research was the data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (from 1991 to 2017).