This research has been designed because it has been realized that there is only little research carried out about the student participation in the administration for the structuring of the democratic authority in the higher education system in Turkey. In the relevant literature, concepts of democratic authority and education have been approached from two different perspectives. One of these perspectives is the democratic school/education approach based on the alternative education paradigm, which is not practiced in Turkey. The second perspective is the democracy approach in school/education. This study seeks an answer to how the process in which students get involved in the administration of the higher education institutions works. In order to reveal students tendency between aforementioned paradigms their views and needs about their participation in the decision making process were analyzed. Within this framework, two focus groups including students at Marmara University in the 2011-2012 academic year who are taking part in the student council and those who are not taking part in the council have been focused on. The results of the study have been found by means of the content analysis of the data. The results that can be categorized under three content categories have been compared with the literature regarding the alternative education and democratic school. According to the results, significant differences were found between students taking part in the council and those who were not members of the council in terms of handling some facts and concepts using the terminology in the literature pertaining to democratic education/ school. According to the results, some suggestions have been discussed. The results of the study are also likely to lead to a set of recommendations on the basis of barriers set in front of students' participation to shape the democratic authority at higher education institutions and their suggestions.