Tell me what you study and where you live! Exploring the role that these aspects play when choosing a university

Abstract

Previous literature on students’ decisions and choices regarding universities contains a large number of factors that influence these process. This research focuses on two of these factors and its aim is twofold. First, it is analyses how prospective students’ study areas impact on the relative importance of different university selection criteria. Second, it examines whether the environment of residence (i.e., the size of the municipality) leads to differences in these criteria. The results obtained from a sample of 605 prospective university students who live in the Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha allowed us to conclude that there were significant differences in most of the selection criteria according to the field of study and the size of the municipality (i.e., five and six out of nine criteria, respectively). Some practical implications for the design of segmentation strategies and communication campaigns in the context of higher education institutions are presented in this work.