Educational resources are also called "educational economic conditions". The manpower, material resources and financial resources occupied, used and consumed in the education process. That is, the sum of educational human resources, material resources and financial resources. Human resources include the human resources of educators and the human resources of educatees, that is, the number of students in school, the number of students in classes, the number of students enrolled, the number of graduates, the number of administrative staff, the number of teaching staff, the number of teaching assistants, the number of workers and production personnel, etc. Material resources include the school's fixed assets, materials and low-value consumables.

There are many ways to classify educational resources, which can be divided into national resources, local resources and personal resources according to their ownership and management level. According to its educational level, it can be divided into basic education resources and higher education resources; According to its composition, it can be divided into fixed resources and mobile resources; According to their knowledge level, it can be divided into brand resources, teacher resources and student resources; According to its policy orientation, it can be divided into planned resources and market resources, and so on.

As an educational resource, system can be marketized, so as to give full play to the basic role of market mechanism in the allocation of other educational resources; It can also be planned-oriented, which makes it difficult for the market mechanism to make a difference in the allocation of educational resources. Throughout the ages, due to the different social systems, ideologies and material living standards in different historical development periods, people have different understandings of the attributes, values, uses, ways of utilization and ways of realization of educational resources.