University rankings have become an increasingly important aspect of academia in recent years. These rankings, which evaluate universities based on a variety of factors such as research output, graduation rates, and reputation, provide valuable information for students, educators, and policymakers alike.

The question of why postsecondary institutions produce different labor market outcomes is difficult to answer due to unobserved student characteristics. Here, I leverage students' geographic proximity to three classifications of postsecondary institutions -- earnings-enhancing, competitive, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).…

This research investigates the influential factors impacting CDM among prospective online MBA students, using qualitative interviews. This research focus is contextualised with analysis on the CDM process and the disparity between UK and international students, to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the influential factors. The findings…

This article draws from American research on ''concerted cultivation'' to compare the parenting logics of 41 upper-middle-class parents in Toronto, Canada. We consider not only how parents structure their children's after-school time (what parents do) but also how the broader ecology of schooling informs their parenting logics (how they…

This descriptive study utilized a validated questionnaire that gathered data from freshmen of two different school years. Demographic profile, marketers (i.e., source of information of students about the school), influencers (i.e., significant others that persuaded them to enroll in the school), level of school choice, and level of consideration…

What features lead a student to choose sport science, chemistry, physics, computer science or musicology as their subject of study and the Saarland University Saarbrücken as their place of study? Empirical analysis shows that study conditions for students of chemistry, physics and music do not play an important role in selecting the place of…

Rankings and online comparison sites have both facilitated and shaped the marketisation of higher education in England, the UK as a whole and elsewhere. They have facilitated marketisation by introducing greater competition between and within higher education institutions. Ultimately, they accomplish the transformation of qualities into…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influenced college choice of students who recently enrolled (current freshmen and sophomores) in agriculture programs at Oklahoma's land-grant university, as compared to recently enrolled students (current freshmen and sophomores) in selected agriculture programs at public community colleges…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to ascertain students' perceptions on quality of services provided by private universities in Thailand and Japan and how these affected decisions selecting a university. A comparative study aims to focus on how cultural and economic factors affected their decisions. Design/methodology/approach: Research design…

In response to the controversial college rankings published in national magazines, Stanford University (California) has posted some of the statistics used in the "U.S. News and World Report" on its World Wide Web site. It encourages other institutions to do the same to make the information readily available without the perceived…

This article explores the factors influencing student choice at six contrasting universities in Scotland to establish if there is value in developing a model for predicting institutional choice for Scottish undergraduate entry. It is based on a survey of 651 students in two undergraduate disciplines, accountancy and engineering, across the six…

The "U.S. News and World Report" rankings of colleges do not affect institutions equally; the schools impacted most are those that have the most to lose because they benefit from, even rely on, the rankings for prestige and visibility. The magazine relies on the rankings for substantial sales revenues, and has garnered considerable power…

Two representatives of popular magazines that publish controversial rankings of colleges and universities respond to criticism of the rankings. Issues addressed include the need for third-party comparisons, the importance of institutional reputation, cooperation with the higher education community, changing methodology, data integrity, reader…

The way that students structure the colleges they choose among in a particular educational market is analyzed with a sample of 408 locally-college-bound high school seniors from 16 area schools. In January and February 1985, the College Image Questionnaire was administered to the seniors. The students judged the similarity (psychological distance)…

A representative sample of 987 entering freshmen (45 percent male and 55 percent female) at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), were surveyed regarding their attitudes and demographic characteristics during two-day summer orientation sessions. The typical UMCP freshman was from an upper-middle class home, earned at least a B average…