In European studies on sport psychology the number of publications focused on the issues of maintaining life balance among athletes and effectively combining sports with other activities (including education, work, creating a family, raising children and others) increases every year (EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes, 2012). For Russian psychology of sport and related branches of knowledge a term of “dual career” (DC) is a relatively new concept. Previous researchers have shown that the problem of combining sports career and education at the university level is also relevant for the Russian reality, especially for students with a high sports qualification (Afanasyev & Zotov, 2014; Galimov, 2016; Hubbiev, 2010). To investigate the difficulties of DC in our study we used a semi-structured interview and a questionnaire for assessing the frequency of main difficulties’ occurrence. The sample was comprised of 115, male and female, age with a range from 17 to 21. Four categories of difficulties were identified through thematic content analysis: 1) time and moving from place to place, 2) financial, 3) communicative, 4) cognitive and emotional. The results showed that student-athletes are experiencing a large number of organisational and psychological difficulties. Thus, we work out a scientifically based career assistance programme, aimed at developing coping strategies such as stress and time management. Suggestions for promoting skills to maintain life balance through the effective use of both internal and external resources are discussed.