The article considers the conceptual and practice issues of reforming higher library and information education in Ukraine within state policy. Two-planes approach is applied: the study combines educational research and concepts of state policy efficiency evaluation with taking into account exogenous factors. The current state, problems and prospects of LIS education in Ukraine are considered in light of overall world trends in libraries development in the 21st century and best practices of some European states. The conclusion is made that in the last decade, there has been a transformation of the instrumental, that is, technological, model of the modernization of librarianship into a conceptual one focused on the implementation of the new socio-cultural mission of libraries in the knowledge-based information society, and, accordingly, LIS education should not only correspond but get ahead of libraries evolution, with a view on extremely rapid knowledge obsolescence. The model of evaluating economic effectiveness of state policy in reforming higher library and information education is proposed, which is rather universal that nation-state- oriented, as it allows taking into account the influence of specific factors of environment.