The design of a balanced educational program is a complex optimization problem, in which the sequence of courses, credit restrictions, and student and lecturers workload must be controlled. The paper presents a method for optimal design of an academic program, which must simultaneously satisfy the following constraints: each course is taught only after the prerequisite courses, the student workload is maintained within a certain credit range in each semester, and the lecturer's workload must be within a certain number of hours. A system with a multi-island architecture based on a hybrid genetic algorithm and incorporating Tabu Search and Large Neighborhood Search tools was developed and implemented. The research has practical significance, which is expressed in the possibility of accelerating the design of new educational programs and promoting students’ academic progress.