The article presents a study of the goal setting by modern students. The authors analyze the role of goal setting in educational and future professional activities. The authors consider goal setting in the structure of valueoriented activity. They reveal the correlation of prosocial and egoistic values of students. The article provides a brief overview of modern approaches to goal setting. The authors consider various aspects of goal setting related to future professional activities, family life planning and the formation of material prosperity. The practical part of the study includes an analysis of goal setting based on a survey of 479 respondents (172 male, 307 female). The respondents were senior students of Novosibirsk universities. The researchers asked the respondents to formulate their life goals for one year, for five years, and for life. The results of this study are diverse. On the one hand, it reveals disturbing trends (a low level of prosocial motives expressed in the goal setting by students, as well as a small percentage of students who associate their future with research activities). Consumer motivation is expressed in student’s goal setting much more strongly than prosocial motivation. On the other hand, the results of the study allow us to speak about the preservation of the importance of family values in the views of modern students. There is a desire to acquire housing in the property, which indicates a tendency to settle down. This contradicts the ideas about the prospect of increasing the mobility of labor resources in Russia. It is also significant that only less than a third of young men and less than a third of girls expressed their intention to start their own business, which indirectly indicates the relatively modest prospects for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. Finally, the study showed a low level of emigrant sentiment among the surveyed students. The authors consider it expedient to organize such studies everywhere on an ongoing basis.