Abstract:

This study aims to explore the students’ motive, expectations, perceptions and satisfaction to prefer public (state-owned) universities to private ones. By using 441 undergraduate and graduate students as the respondents from the three biggest Indonesian public universities, it employed structural equation model (SEM) to test six proposed hypotheses. It found that prestige and social status were the main motives to study in public university, rather than in private ones. It also related to the students’ high expectation on service quality provided by public universities. The results revealed that the students’ perceptions on service quality were related positively to their motive to study, while, the service gap was negatively related to the students’ motive of study. The interesting finding was the students’ satisfaction was unrelated to service gap. It implies new policies and strategies to develop and elevate private universities’ status and point of reference at the candidate students’ mind while improving the public universities’ service quality.

Keywords:

University preferences, Students' motive, expectation, service gap, satisfaction, service quality.