9th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference

Using the example of Australian universities, this workshop illustrates how stated preference experiments and choice models. The focus is on how these methods can be used to provide demand forecasts of international student enrolments and estimates of the economic value of the study in Australia to international students.

Australian universities operate in a highly competitive international environment. They compete with established universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and emerging universities in Asia. Australian universities can improve their financial performance and marketplace positioning by better forecasting future demand from international students and estimating the economic value of university education to international students.

The contribution of the workshop is primarily illustrative – it illustrates the use of SP experiments and choice models to generate the information university decision makers need to make decisions in relation to forecasting demand from international students, managing revenue generated from tuition fees paid by international students, understanding sensitivity to changes in tuition fees, and understanding the economic value to prospective international students of university study and its component parts.

The workshop places emphasis on the outputs generated from the econometric analysis of data generated from SP experiments. As noted above, these outputs include:

1. Demand functions,
2. Revenue functions,
3. Willingness-to-pay estimates, and
4. Price elasticities of demand.

Universities should consider the use of SP experiments and choice models to estimate demand from international students, and to manage demand and revenue generated from tuition fees paid by international students. This workshop illustrates the value to universities of doing – improving both their financial performance and their positioning in the global market for international students.