Problem statement. Freelance teachers are often faced with the fact that students who study in a particular specialty for four or six years, after graduation go to work in another specialty or master another profession. This situation, or rather the problem of so-called "staff turnover", is especially characteristic of technical specialties. And it does not matter whether the student is studying under a contract, whether he occupies a state budget place, whether the student is successful in his studies, or belongs to those who are constantly absent from class and have academic debts. In our opinion, the study of the causes of such issues, which is characteristic of the Free Economic Zone in Ukraine, is an important and insufficiently studied task from a theoretical and practical point of view. A large amount of scientific psychological and pedagogical research is devoted to the study of motives for choosing a specialty and future profession, the topic of motivation of modern youth in general, the study of professional interests of high school students, experimental research on career guidance. But there is very little theoretical and practical work aimed at studying the reasons for choosing a profession that does not correspond to the educational specialty. Purpose of the article is to analyze the problem of studying the professional expectations of students, as well as to investigate the psychological characteristics of young people as a subject of study and the factors influencing young people's choice of specialty and future profession in the process of their education in Institutions of higher education (IHE). Conclusions. Analyzed: psychological features of students as subjects of study; the meaningful nature of students' choice of their professional path; factors influencing young people's choice of specialty and future profession; psychological features of successful mastering of knowledge during training in IHE; psychological components of the student's cognitive activity - motives, interest, attention, memory, volitional and emotional processes; problems of professional career realization as an element of self-realization and human self-development; components of emotional and evaluative attitude of students to the future profession; functions that fulfill professional expectations in the life of the individual; signs of the content of professional expectations.