Nowadays digital education is the one of the main parts of our life. The pandemic situation influenced greatly on digitalization of Russian higher education. Some of higher educational institutions weren’t ready for digital educational activity. This paper concerns the problem of the start of the implementation of digital education at Higher Educational Institutions. The aim of the study is to assess the efficiency of digital education at YSTU in period of the beginning of distance learning. The survey of students revealed in May, 2020, along with the defining of different types of training and the attempts to describe the factors effect on the results of the study. As a methodology we used quantitative research methods, namely, anonymous questionnaires of 204 students of the 1st and 2nd years of YSTU. The survey was conducted one month after the start of distance learning. The results can be used for statistical analysis carried out within the framework of the education reform.