The COVID-19 pandemic has had a shock effect on the global economy. Under these conditions, international national corporations quickly found a way out of the crisis in increasing the resilience of global value chains. At the same time, the education system as a whole lag behind in the reaction due to its conservatism. The purpose of the article is to analyze ways to increase the ability of higher education to respond flexibly to shocks and adapt to a dramatically changed environment to ensure sustainable development in a pandemic. An analysis of current trends in education not only as a product of universities, but also in the triple helix State, Business, University, made it possible to identify the following opportunities. The university acquires the functions of an entrepreneurial one, the purpose of which is to provide conditions not only for increasing the volume of academic knowledge, but also for applying knowledge in practice. To develop this, it is necessary to create a national educational platform, one of the parts of which will be a virtual advanced training system adapted to different age groups and needs, which makes it possible to support an individual trajectory of a person's professional development throughout life. It is also necessary to introduce special teaching methods, such as Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning, which allow solving “new” non-standard tasks.