The article covers problems of modern Russian high school associated with the formation of personnel potential. The author considers the tendency to integrate Russian higher education into the international educational space and refers to the problems related to the process: insufficient use of opportunities of a substantial modernization of professional education; the contradiction between its quality and availability potential; growing competition between traditional institutions of professional education and new systems of corporate training etc. The focus is made on the mission of the graduate school as the institution aimed at the formation of personnel potential in contemporary culture. The article examines the role of the higher school in the design and implementation of innovations in promising areas and main spheres of the social life in the country, region, area; notes the contribution of the higher school in the upbringing of leaders and the importance of the consolidation and organization of the University community to work out the government positions and solve the topical problems of socio-economic development, education, science and culture.