University and course choice: Implications for positioning, recruitment and marketing

TLDR: In this paper, the authors aimed at finding out the factors students consider important in their decision-making related to choice of university and courses of study and found that potential applicants to HE will increasingly become consumerist.

Abstract: Purpose – Higher education environments have become increasingly competitive and institutions have to compete for students in the recruitment markets With the introduction of student fees, it is hypothesised that potential applicants to HE will increasingly become consumerist The research upon which this paper was based was aimed at finding out the factors students consider important in their decision making related to choice of university and courses of studyDesign/methodology/approach – Five sixth form schools and colleges in the Southampton University Partnership Scheme participated in the study Three hundred and eighty seven students (186 male and 201 female) voluntarily participated The study involved a survey questionnaire based on a 10 point Likert scale and included 35 university choice factors which students were to rank accordingly It also included 10 items similarly ranked to identify factors influencing university subject or course choice Simple descriptive statistics were used to ident