The purpose of the article is to study the development of the crisis of higher education of the Russian Empire in 1911, the so-called "Kasso crisis", on the example of five provincial universities - Novorossiysk (located in Odessa), St. Vladimir in Kiev, Yuryev, Tomsk and Kazan. Traditionally, this period in the history of higher education of the Russian Empire was investigated on the example of the St. Petersburg and Moscow universities. This work aims to find out whether the reaction in the selected universities was only an echo of the events in St. Petersburg and Moscow, or we can talk about unique scenarios of its development. The study is based on a wide range of archival and published historical sources, including those not introduced into scientific circulation. As a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that the course of the crisis, its main driving forces, the positions of professors and students in different universities of the Empire were very similar. Common to provincial universities and uniting them with the capital were ideas about the importance of "academic freedom", unwillingness to perform police functions, the desire to soften the blow of repression against students. At the same time, the tactics of the universities were different and depended on the composition of the professor's corporations and the region to which the university belonged.