Abstract: The article is focused on the reforms of higher education in the USSR in the 1920s. The subject of research is the activity of the public student organization of proletarian students "Proletstud" during the initial period of its existence from 1923 to 1925. The object of research is the state policy in the field of higher education. The formation of Proletstud was tied to the necessity of the proletarization of the student body. The named organization was created by the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and its aim was to involve the masses of students into the party through the union cells of universities. The article's aim is to study the sources from the work of the First All-Union Conference of Proletarian Students (April 1925), where the main results of the Proletstud work during its first few years of existence were summed up. Well-known public figures gave speeches at this conference: A. V. Lunacharsky, M. N. Pokrovsky, S. A. Lozovsky, I. I. Khodorovsky, Y. P. Ryappo, as well as the chairman of the Central Bureau of the Proletstud G. V. Voskanyan. At the moment of holding this conference, the Proletstud organization already numbered 150 000 proletarian students in 60 department around the Union. In the article, the author applied the method of systematic analysis, and the research is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. It is worth noting that the activity of the Proletstud is almost unstudied. No monographs on this topic have been discovered. The article is written on the basis of materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (collection No. 5574 "Organizational Bureau of Student Sections of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions"). The scientific novelty of this research lies in its analysis of unpublished sources on one of the most important directions of state policy - the field of higher education, specifically, it shows the significant role of the Proletstud activity, which touched upon all aspects of students' lives - academic, educational, social and daily.