Good or Bad?

So Peter the Great was obviously a selfish ruler, but I've been wondering if that automatically taints his internal reforms. While there are many cases of Peter acting without considering the public or the Russian identity--he completely changed traditional Russian culture by enforcing westernization and he moved the capital to a previously foreign territory, he did initiate an education system by laying "the foundations for the colleges" (173 Peter the Great by Paul Bushkokitch). What is interesting about this is that Peter actually began to return the power to the aristocracy in the educational realm, which contradicts his anti-nobility stance. While he had attempted to kind of reintegrate the nobility into the government in 1698, in giving nobility powerful roles in education, Peter is limiting who can access such education. I understand that education in this period was essentially exclusive to the nobility, but I feel as if in giving the nobility such powerful roles, Peter ties down the potential for education to spread to the masses and makes the educational realm something that is very exclusive and representative of the power of the nobility.
But to backtrack a little bit--I'm still pretty hung up on the fact that toward the end of his reign Peter began to restore the power of the nobility. What is so characteristic and unique about his reign is that he eliminated so much power from the aristocracy and that he managed to maintain rule and avoid a rebellion even though he completely altered the internal Russian social structure. While there was discontentment among the aristocracy, it was never voiced in a violent manner. Why then did Peter give in? I personally believe that Peter was only able to maintain his power because he was the rightful heir to the throne and the Russian people didn't want to dispute the sanctity of this inheritance. When compared to Hitler whose platform was almost entirely built upon the support of the public, it becomes clear that the only thing that maintained Peter's power was his title. While Peter undeniably changed Russian society, he did not influence the Russian public. What I mean by that is that Hitler completely brainwashed the majority of the German public and got them on his side (as Danielle's post "Tactics to Gain Power" cites that membership to the Nazi party increased from 389,000 in the beginning of 1931 to 800,000 by the end of that year), whereas in Peter's case, the Russian public was on his side (for the most part) by default.
Does this change the influence of Peter's reign or his reputation? To be honest, it's much more impressive when somone comes out of no where and completely imposes his rule and, beyond that, gains SUPPORT than it is for someone to stray from the norm of what their title entails.