The paper attempts to identify and analyze the main stages of studying the history of university education in the Urals. The peculiarities of studying the issue under study determined the specifics of the author's approach - the inclusion of works that explore the higher school of the USSR. The author divided the extensive body of discovered historical literature into 2 periods: Soviet and post-Soviet. During the Soviet period, the formation of the study of higher education problems in the USSR, including university education, took place. Monographs, collective works, and papers are actively appearing, which are written in a wide chronological and territorial framework, based on a large statistical array of data. In the post-Soviet period, research on higher education continues. There are papers, the authors of which analyzed the formation and development of regional higher education systems, identified their main stages. Certain aspects of university education in the Urals (specific universities - Perm State University named after A.M. Gorky and Ural State University named after A.M. Gorky). A body of memoir literature dedicated to these higher educational institutions has been identified. The author has not revealed any generalizing works on the history of university education, which stimulates him to further scientific research on this issue.