Which Matters More in Higher Education: Social Environment or Teaching Excellence? A Comparison Between Private and Public Universities

The competition among higher education institutions to attract and retain prospective students is constantly getting fiercer. Therefore, it is important to investigate the factors that affect student satisfaction, student loyalty, and perceived image of a university. This study aims to identify and compare the influence of social environment and teaching excellence provided to students on institutions' university image, student satisfaction, and student loyalty. The data were collected from 829 undergraduate students who were studying at 15 universities, 5 public and 10 private, in Istanbul. The data were analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling. The hypotheses were tested by using path analysis in AMOS and Independent Sample t-Test in SPSS. The results provide evidence that both social environment and teaching excellence have a direct significant influence on the image of a university and student satisfaction, together with an indirect influence on student loyalty through university image and student satisfaction. Some suggestions for higher education institutions are made based on the differences between coefficients among variables.