Students’ choice of university in transnational education: the factors influencing their decision to study at a country-branded university

This research identifies the factors – which include country brand authenticity – that students perceived had influenced their decision to study at a country-branded university (CBU). An online survey was used to obtain data from 1,199 higher education students studying at Canadian, Chinese and United States-affiliated universities located in Bangladesh, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. It was found that the institution’s reputation, perceived service quality, country brand authenticity, and financial factors each influenced at least 70 per cent of our research participants in their decision to study at the CBU. In all three institutions, country brand authenticity achieved a higher mean score and rank position than financial factors. With country brand authenticity driving the institution choices of nearly three-quarters of the surveyed students, transnational universities should place greater emphasis on their authentic foreign country ties in future marketing. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the factors influencing students’ decision to study at a CBU, and to consider the role of country brand authenticity in these decisions.