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This paper examines why music higher education across five Central Asian states—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—resists the regional integration that general higher education has begun to pursue. We compare degree structures, accreditation systems, and curriculum models at each country’s national conservatory, and we analyse national education laws alongside international agreements to trace the roots of divergence. The analytical lens combines institutional isomorphism—a framework that explains how organisations copy, comply with, or professionally absorb external models—with the concept of regional education space as a deliberate governance project. The evidence reveals a pattern we call the conservatory paradox: every government simultaneously pushes its conservatory toward Bologna-compatible degree formats and charges the same institution with safeguarding nationally distinct oral music traditions that UNESCO has inscribed on its heritage lists. This dual mandate opens a persistent gap between what formal structures describe and what classrooms actually deliver. Rather than full harmonisation, we propose a three-level coordination framework—mutual trust through accreditation without curriculum uniformity, joint heritage projects anchored in shared traditions such as Shashmaqom, and short-term mobility windows that bypass the credit-transfer bottleneck.