A MODEL OF STUDENTS’ UNIVERSITY DECISION-MAKING BEHAVIOR

Over the last decade the higher education institutional framework suffered a major transformation:the increasing influence of market competition on academic life - “marketization”.Consequently, HEI attention is increasingly focused on attracting high quality (human) resources and students. Such context demands a deeper understanding of students’ decision making process for HEI. Literature on higher education management provides a large number of models, which attempt to provide an understanding of student buying behavior and how they select a university. Based on literature review, this paper explores different university choice models (economic, status attainment, combined) that analyze the student behavior as consumers in the higher education marketplace and suggests a new one, considering the phases of the decision making process and the factors that influence university choice decision. Finally, implication of factors in different phases of the decision process are discussed.