The relevance of the research proposed in the article is determined by the fact that one of the basic components of human capital is the educational potential of the population, whose qualitative characteristics determine the future development of the country. The purpose of the proposed article is to describe the specifics of the subjective and objective components of the educational potential of the population of border regions, as well as the motivation of citizens to optimize it in a regional context. The analysis of the functioning of indicators of intellectual capital and educational resources of the population is based on an interdisciplinary approach (economics, sociology, pedagogy); the theory of reproductive mechanisms for the dissemination of intellectual information at the macro, meso and micro levels of its implementation is used, the phenomenon of "lifelong education" and "lifelong education" is investigated. Conclusions are drawn that the actual factor of development and improvement of the efficiency of human capital is a high level of living.