What students want: using a choice modelling approach to estimate student demand

Higher education institutions operate in an increasingly competitive global market, and require precise knowledge regarding the preferences of potential students. Traditional methods for evaluating what potential students look for in a degree tend to be descriptive, and while informative, do not assess the strength of students' preferences; how important they are relative to each other, and hence where efforts and investments may best be targeted. To do this, more statistically rigorous methods are required. We used a discrete choice experiment to estimate the relative importance of the attributes that inform student choice and also quantify these trade-offs in monetary terms using 'willingness to pay'. Using data from a UK postgraduate institution we illustrate how this method can be applied and can provide an accurate measure of student preferences as well as quantifying the trade-offs students are willing to make. Our results show that staff expertise, and flexibility of the teaching platform, were the attributes that students most highly value when choosing a postgraduate degree.