I think Kostornaya is a bright as they come and together with her parents knows about all the options available to her and the barriers that might be in her way to success.
If she really is clever and studious, she will be looking forward to finishing her school year with the best results possible after JWC and her skating season comes to a close. I suppose she is a 11th or 12th grade student by now?
So she will apply herself to her classes, clear the backlog of lessons and tests and prepare for her end of year exam. I know ordinary school takes second stage to skating, but ambitious and bright kids still are able to keep up with both, doing homework instead of social media or television after dinner.
As others have written in this thread and elsewhere, when despite her magnificent figure skating and ambitions to become World Champion, when still being overclassed by other skaters, Alyona herself might step down from the highest level of figure skating and enrol herself in medical university when she has finished her school's final year with the required results, perhaps taking an extra prep year.
She will still be able to skate in national championships or for her own pleasure, or even maintain some endorsements.
And wouldn't it be nice if there was a NCAA style of student competition program in Russia, where good students that are good athletes can study and compete on a bursary?
As much as I'd love her to continue her education and seems already like a very bright young lady, I hope that she does not step down from figure skating simply due to the competition in Russia. Sure, there are plenty of girls with higher base values, working on quads, etc., yet many do not even come close to her in actual competition. Quads and triple axels aren't everything. Her execution of what she does is pristine, even miles ahead of girls with supposedly higher technical skill, and artistry light years ahead. One of my main worries is that figure skating will just become about quads, triple axels, jumps, jumps, who can do most quads kind of environment. Of course, jumps are amazing feats but I'd like to not sacrifice artistry and execution in turn for more rotations. Alena's skating is the type of skating the senior/figure skating world in general needs right now, and I hope she keeps the amazing work up for the coming years internationally.