Abstract: Strategic management of the modern university is determined by many factors including global transformations that create a highly competitive educational environment. Post-Soviet space of higher education is undergoing a series of crises that are enhanced due to the overlapping of international and regional trends. The aim of the study was to concretize the risks and challenges facing the regional Pedagogical University, as well as in the development of strategies to overcome current risks and adequate response to the specific challenges. Applied the methods of conceptual analysis, in-depth expert interviews, analytics statistics. According to most experts modern universities are in a situation paradigm shift their activities. Universities that do not meet the paradigmatic changes in the social life, lose its status. Russian universities are no longer able to use the internal strategy of "imitation" of university activities. Existing proposals on the global education market radically change the post-Soviet map of higher education.