The urgency of the problem under investigation is due to the fact that in the system of educational work in the modern higher vocational education the objective tendencies in the youth students are insufficiently taken into account. Educational work today acquires special importance as an integral part of specialist training in a modern university. Educating young people is one of the priorities in the field of national security, the most important factor of political, economic and cultural transformation of Russian society. The main purpose of education is to produce creative thinking and harmonious development of profession-als with deep scientific and theoretical knowledge, formed by professional competence, high moral character. The paper pre-sents the analytical evaluation of the quality and criteria for educational work in the universities of Russia, the peculiarities of the educational work in higher educational institutions. In accordance with the problems and the nature of the studies systematic structural and comparative analysis methods are used. The described in the article experience can be used in the process of improving the system of educational work of undergraduate students.