The Soviets would attempt to solve it by requiring the graduates to work off about 3 years in the place chosen by the joint commissions from Gosplan/Ministry of Labour/Ministry of Higher Education (those same commissions determined the number of students to enroll in the first place, so...). And this system (called "distribution", as in, "distributing the graduates to the workplaces") was widely unpopular for obvious reasons.
I knew someone who got a master's in nursing and did this. She ended up really liking the population that she worked with and stayed there past the required number of years.