The paper analyzes the factors affecting the tuition fee in Russian public higher education institutions. The purpose of the study is to identify pricing factors and measure their influence on tuition fees at bachelor and specialist educational programs. The relevance of the research is characterized by the need for effective pricing policy tool for public universities with consideration of their peculiarities and external factors. Empirical basis of this research is formed by Monitoring of enrollment quality at Russian universities – 2018 and Monitoring of performance of Russian higher education institutions – 2018. More than five thousand observations in the context of educational programs have been analyzed via multiple log-linear regression. The key limitations of the study are database specification, that excludes the information on private universities and their branches, and a wide qualitative indicators dispersion within enlarged groups caused by the heterogeneity of Russian educational space. Regression analysis results shows a significant influence of external factors on the tuition fees in Russian public universities with the absence of ability to affect them. Particularly, social and economic indicators of the region, competition level in the local markets, as well as the volume of state funding create a significant influence on tuition fees. The influence is supported by two basic external factors: low solvent demand for tuition-based educational services from population and the presence of two gravity centers among the heterogeneity of the Russian educational space – Moscow and Saint Petersburg.