In the conditions of formation of post-industrial social relations, there is a qualitative transformation of basic principles of functioning of both leading national economies and the world economy as a whole. In particular, under intensive scientific and technical progress, as well as the growth of labour productivity, knowledge, technologies and innovations became the basis for building a competitive national economy. Education, as one of the leading industries that produce these factors, becomes one of the highest priorities of state regulation. In this regard, this article is devoted to the justification of effectiveness of financial support of education in the context of development and transformation of the national economy. To fulfil this task, at the first stage the authors formed a set of statistical data covering 14 countries of Central and Eastern Europe for the period 2006-2016, calculations were performed using the STATA 11 complex, a regression analysis with fixed effects and a distribution-lag modelling were selected as the study methods. Government expenditures on education were dependent variables and the leading indicators of the national economy (e.g., GDP, GNI, industry, production, services and agriculture as value added, imports and exports of goods and services, FDI, etc.) were as independent variables. In the second stage, a correlation analysis was performed to justify the need for the use of lag and determine its value. As a result of the study, the authors of the work revealed the current and long-term relationship between macroeconomic parameters that characterize sectoral and technological changes in the structure of the national economy and state financing of education. At the same time, a direct relationship was found for the main macroeconomic indicators (GDP, GNI, the participation of industry, production, services and agriculture in value added, exports and imports of goods and services), and long-term relationship (with a lag of 3-7 years) was found for FDI, current and financial balance of payments (direct dependence), exports of hightech ICT goods and services, as well as tax revenues (inverse dependence).