The article analyzes the value orientations of regional students as a social group that has its own special evaluative attitude to the totality of material and spiritual benefi ts, expressed through cognitive, emotive and behavioral aspects of life. The article pays special attention to the theoretical approaches to the consideration of value orientations given in the works of E. Durkheim, T. Parsons, T. Lukman, K. Klakhonoma, P. Sorokin, J. Toshchenko and others. Understanding value orientations as one of the regulators of personality behavior allowed to identify the motivation of actions and ways to achieve the goals of regional student youth. In the course of the author's sociological research, a survey of the student youth of Balakovo was conducted (n= 332) – people selected according to a probabilistic quota sample. It was found out that a signifi cant part of the respondents are guided by traditional values such as family (82.2%), health (49.3%), money (34.0%), friends (29.5%). However, students have new dominant forms of value orientations, namely, «to live in prosperity», «to open their own business». According to more than half of the respondents (50.3%), the formation of their value orientations depends on the educational system, while the family plays the largest role in shaping the value picture of the world (69.2%). The article concludes that the value orientations of students of the Saratov region (Balakovo city) are specifi c and contradictory. On the one hand, they express young people's own activity and understanding of the need for self-development, and on the other hand, they refl ect the trends of the industrial economy, which is based on material capital and consumerism.