Exploring the Decision Process of School Leavers' and 'Mature Students' in University Choice

ABSTRACT

Education services are an important social and economic element of Australian society. For example, at any one time, more than one in three Australians is a student. Further, educational institutions employ 7% of the Australian workforce, and the production of education is valued at more than 6% of Gross Domestic Product (Gatfield 1998). Similarly, industry and governments regularly spend more than $20 billion on education each year (Burke 1992). Thus, this area of university choice is important to the continued development of the Australian economy and society.

With an increasing proportion of the Australian population being given the chance to attend university, educators and marketers in the sector are faced with a diverse mix of Mature and School Leaver entrants. Where the institution is newly formed, or undergoing change, the problems associated with attracting and keeping students are increased. Thus, this research specifically addressed the important issue: 'are there any differences between how Mature entrants and those who have just left school undertake the decision to attend a new University.

KEYWORDS:

• Segmentation
• decision-making
• new students
• marketing
• Australia
• empirical