Modern education is undergoing a time of fundamental change: it is progressing, changing and being filled with new types of educational services. All types of activities of higher education institutions can be considered through the prism of project activities, especially educational projects. Educational projects of higher education institutions face a set of different risk groups, which differ in place and time of occurrence, the degree of impact on the project, the consequences, the composition of internal and external factors. Therefore, a very important area of research in educational activities is to reveal the nature and structure of risks of educational projects, features, factors on which the successful implementation of projects in educational institutions depends. The author analyzes the key positions on this issue: systematized and singled out groups of external and internal risks of educational activities, comprehensively revealed the system of external risks and proposed possible mechanisms for responding to them, outlined the range of losses (economic, social, political and pedagogical) that are the result of risky events; systematized risk groups (external and internal) and their factors of influence that are characteristic of educational projects; assessed risks according to the probability of impact on the project, identification of critical points with a list of unacceptable risks; the matrix of probability of risks importance with the subsequent definition of the most priority risk events is constructed. For effective implementation of educational activities in the field of higher education, it is necessary for higher education institutions to identify risks beforehand, which will reduce uncertainty in the educational institutions activities, determine the direction of movement, which should focus on management, personnel, methodological, research, financial, technological and organizational resource.