Аннотация:The article analyzes the ideal of the educated person as one of the key notions, which is of great importance for the forming the spiritual culture of society and the social climate as a whole. Educational ideal is regarded as a regulative idea in different aspects: as an articulation of the social demands towards education; as a theoretical foundation of our understanding and investigating the education; as a justification of individual's educational choice and life script and as a declaring certain civic virtues in form of demanded social competencies. The ideal of the educated person in the context of the state policy and the economic approach toward education is examined.The article reviews major criticisms of the economic approach to understanding the aims and goals of education and the social and individual well-being as well; the insufficiency of the economic dimension of education effectiveness is shown.The article then moves on to investigate the significance of citizen activity as social value and component of holistic image of the educated person. It is argued, that the main outcomes of education is not only the individual`s development but forming also his environment. Therefore social responsibility and active civic attitude are to be the distinctive features of the educated person. Education is a significant tool to contribute the constructive social creativity, to overcome “civic privatism” (J.Habermas) and to prevent the social destructive behavior. The last one is of particular importance for the culturally heterogeneous society characterized by different moral and political values of persons.