• Dagestan State University of Higher Education
• Dagestan State Academy
• Dagestan State Institute
• Dagestan State Higher Educational Institute

Dagestan State University is a major educational, scientific and cultural center in Makhachkala (Republic of Dagestan), which provides training at all levels, high school, pre-university, postgraduate and further education on a wide range of natural-scientific, humanitarian, economic, technical specialties and other directions. On October 8, 1931 the Dagestan State University was inaugurated by Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (DASSR) at the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the October Revolution. Opening of the Pedagogical Institute was a major event in the cultural life of the country. The first in the province higher education was designed to prepare highly qualified teachers for the national school. The first batch of 75 students were enrolled in November 1931 with 10 full-time teachers. In 1931, the institute opened 3 new branches:  socio-literary, chemical-biological, physical and technical. In 1932 the next academic year of Dagestan Pedagogical Institute, the structure of the Institute was changed by the order of People's Commissariat of the agro-industrial educational institutions which have been converted into ordinary educational institutions and  6 new branches were introduced mathematical, physical, chemical, historical, biological, language and literature. In 1957 Dagestan Pedagogical Institute was accepted by the Organization of Council of Ministers and became Dagestan State University with 5 additional departments: History and Philology, Physics and Mathematics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Engineering and Technology. In 1972, the Dagestan State University organized Economics and Law Faculty which divided in 1973 on economic and law faculties, in 1974 - Faculty of Soviet trade.  By 1980, Dagestan State University already had 11 faculties and 49 departments. Dagestan State University today has an innovative educational and scientific and organizational structure, which includes 18 faculties, 7 branches, 103 departments, 2 museums (biological and historical) the biological station, planetarium.