Abstract: The subject of this article is the relation of modern student youth of Yoshkar-Ola to the Mari language, as well as place of this language within the system of its communication and value interests. The task at hand is viewed with consideration of the opposition of ethnic factor inherent to the Mari El Republic (Russians, Mari, and other ethnic groups). Its relevance is associated with the need for studying the current socio-linguistic situation in the polyethnic constituents of the Russian Federation, and the place of national (regional state) languages within them. The article manifests as a generalization of results of the sociological survey “Social Portrait of Student Youth”, conducted in 2015 by the department of Sociology of the Mari Scientific Research Institute of Linguistics, Literature, and History among the students of two universities (Mari State University and Volga State University of Technology). The scientific novelty of this work consists in the applied empirical material that is introduced into the academic discourse for the first time, as well as its problematic (communicative and value components of the Mari language in perception of the modern student youth of a polycultural city) that is also being examined for the first time in the regional ethno-sociological and socio-linguistic science. Attention is centered around the following aspects of reflection of the students regarding the Mari language: educational practice (place of Mari language in the system of studying/already learnt languages), communication prospect (necessary knowledge of Mari language for future life), educational paradigm (necessary teaching in all schools of the Republic), and ethnic-value reflection (acknowledgement of Mari language as native). The article proves that the Mari language as the regional state language in a modern polycultural city Yoshkar-Ola preserves its importance, primarily within the system of communication and value interests of the Mari student youth; however, even in such environment it loses its positions, but maintains its ethnic value significance.