Education Students as Consumers: Choice of a University Education

Abstract

This study examined the university student-institutional relationship within a consumer behavior framework, which portrays the student as a consumer of the educational services offered by a university. The research examined some of the characteristics of full-time university students registered in the College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, and selected aspects of the decision process employed by these students when they made the decision to attend university for the academic year under study. Students did search for information, with the amount of search declining from first through fourth year. University students were the most used source of information. The most used evaluative criteria were the college program and previous investment in the program. No students felt that someone else had made the decision for them and approximately 68% were satisfied, at the end of the academic year, with their decision to attend.

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Canadian Higher Education Research on Tuition Fees

“…The 1980s also saw the introduction of some new ideas in the journal. Thinking about students as consumers, Pain (1986) examined the university student-institutional relationship and student decision making by applying a consumer behavior framework. Translating the problems of public policy to questions of institutional management, Crespo et al (1986) examined the man-agement of budgetary austerity in universities through the lens of department chairpersons, and Holdaway (1988) introduced into the journal questions regarding public policy that could increase support for international university students, in light of substantial declining international enrolment in the 1980s.…”