Abstract. The development of distance education has been the focus of researchers over the past years, but due to the COVID-2019 pandemic, the use of distance learning has become a vital task for the education system. The massive forced transition of universities to distance learning has provided invaluable experience and made it possible to learn useful lessons. The purpose of the article is to analyze the organization of distance learning for students in a pandemic. The article focuses on the following questions: “To what extent were universities ready for the transition to distance learning?”; "Can distance learning be able to replace full-time education without reducing the quality of education?", "Does the current e-education system meet the requirements for education in the 21st century?" The article is written on the basis of the results of questioning and interviewing students and teachers of four universities in Belgorod. In the course of the conducted socio-pedagogical research, it was found that Belgorod educational organizations of higher education (universities), relying on the previously created base of distance learning, were able to promptly organize the implementation of curricula remotely and successfully complete the academic year. At the same time, Belgorod universities do not consider distance education as a real alternative to the traditional one. The study also showed that modern e-education in the form in which it exists does not fully meet the requirements of the technological revolutions of the 21st century, since it is aimed only at the transfer of information and does not contribute to the formation of a creative personality with a high degree of mobility