The research urgency is caused by the increase of social responsibility of universities for improvement of the quality of higher education and development of students' socio-professional values. In terms of the conflicting realities of modern society the youth policy at the University is the most important tool to form students' commitment to universal human and national values, involvement in socio-political, socio-cultural and professional activities. The purpose of this article is to develop practical recommendations for the development and implementation of youth policy in the University as a tool for development of student public associations. The leading approach of the study is the integrative approach which allows to consider the youth policy in the University as a component of the educational process that combines a system of normative-legal, organizational- managerial, psychological-pedagogical, scientific-methodical measures that are implemented on the basis of interaction with civil society institutions, with the aim of expanding opportunities for effective self-realization of young people and achievement of sustainable socio-economic development of modern society. The study involved 450 teachers, 600 students, which revealed the criteria for the effectiveness of youth policy at the University. Main results of the research consist in the identification of organizational and managerial measures aimed at the creation and coordination of the activities of the Department of youth policy at the University (development of local normative acts, specific activities in areas of the state youth policy, interaction with public federations and associations); psycho-pedagogical measures to facilitate the social adaptation of students (workshops, individual and group counseling, the study of individual-typological peculiarities of the personality of students). The significance of the results is that the identified organizational and managerial measures allow us to determine the functions and structure of the Department of youth policy at the University. The implementation of psycho-educational measures allows us to optimize the development of student self-government.