The most important component of social and economic development of the country is knowledge and information requiring mastery of higher education. The new paradigm of higher education is not training only to obtain specific knowledge but to learn to adapt to a qualitatively different conditions of life, to work in an ever-changing socio-economic environment. Successful career of the young specialist after graduation and application of acquired knowledge and skills in practice depend on the formation of key competencies in an educational institution. Nowadays Russian society demands specific results of vocational education meaning not only graduates’ professional knowledge but his practical readiness for activities in standard and non-standard situations of professional life.

The article is devoted to special educational outcomes of vocational education in which knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving the required quality. It deals with the professional competence and its components such as vocational and key (basic) competences. The article describes the features of pedagogical stimulation of university students’ social competence development by means of interdisciplinary integration. It defines the concept “social competence” and describes pedagogical conditions for stimulation of university students’ social competence development. The study puts forward the indicators of social competence formation and presents the results of experimental work on university students’ social competence development.