The article presents the results of a study on the implementation of academic rights of university students (awareness of their rights, successful implementation, main difficulties and problems). The results of the survey of 1st year students were compared with those of graduate students', faculty of law. The results showed that the majority of students know the academic rights stipulated in the Federal law "On Education in the Russian Federation", but only a small part said that they managed to implement these rights in practice (3-14 % of the 1st year students and 5-11 % of the 4th year). At the same time, only a small part of their rights is used by students (10-20 %). The exception was the right to choose an educational organization: its successful implementation was indicated by 53 % of the 1st year students and 21 % of 4th year students. To change the existing situation the authors organized an activity in which university students and teachers participated in identification of ways on how to identify trends in the development of higher education and outlined ways to improve the implementation of academic rights from the standpoint of the development of students' subjectivity in four areas: improving the regulatory framework, informing students, the competencies of university employees and increasing the activity of students and student government bodies. The main areas of improvement include: informing via the university's website using a comprehensible language that students understand, conducting explanatory talks, advising, and introducing changes to the Federal and university regulatory framework, taking into account existing problems and trends in the future development of higher education.