The article presents the results of a study devoted to highlighting the issues of improving the competitiveness of higher education institutions based on improving the organization and management of top-level processes. The author proposes a conceptual approach to the definition of the concept of «university competitiveness» from the standpoint of universal-essential and descriptive-branch approaches. The proposed clarification of the existing definitions allowed the author to model top-level processes in the logic of IDEF0, the key process is to achieve advantages by creating a stream of successful graduates based on attracting and taking into account the requirements of stakeholders.