PTWhat gives a public university its value?
Brazilian higher education has empty seats, public universities included. To understand what makes a degree worth it, the thesis reviewed 104 articles, interviewed 10 managers at a state university in Paraná and surveyed 513 students. Explained in 12 screens.
Height = average score of the 513 students (1 to 5) on each factor’s questions, our calculation from Table 3. Blue: strategic resources. Red: relationships. The dashed box is value itself, which the thesis proposes to measure in a future study.
In Paraná, programs with many empty seats can lose their license
A quarter of Brazil’s undergraduate seats go unfilled. In 2021, Paraná’s General University Law tied state universities’ funding to student numbers, among other criteria, and a program that fills less than half its seats for six years can lose its license.
Data cited by the thesis (introduction and Article 3). The rule is from the General University Law (Paraná, 2021); the program in the simulator is invented.
When the degree is free, value is measured by quality
In strategy, value is the benefit the customer perceives. At a public university there is no tuition to compare against, so the thesis looks at what students receive and what they build together with the institution.
Concepts from Bowman and Ambrosini (use and exchange value), Besanko and colleagues (quality in place of price) and Dollinger, Lodge and Coates (co-creation in higher education), as the thesis presents them.
The thesis looked at value from three sides: the literature, the managers and the students
There are three articles in sequence. What one finds becomes the starting point of the next: the factors from the literature guided the interviews, and the managers’ words became the questions put to students.
The literature brings together 38 value factors in six groups
The author searched the Web of Science for “value creation” and “university” and read 104 articles. The factors fell into two families: value creation, which the university does with its own resources, and co-creation, which it does together with companies, students and other universities.
Funnel from Figure 1 of Article 1 (search from 1945 to April 2023). The 104 articles appeared in 81 journals; the one with the most (Sustainability) had 4. Each cube in the scene is a factor from Chart 2 (our count: 38, as in the thesis abstract and conclusion).
The managers see progress and list what is still missing
In July and August 2024, the author interviewed ten of the university’s managers over Teams: campus directors, the innovation director and vice-presidents. Pick a topic and read what they said.
Quotes from Charts 1 and 3 of Article 2, by the thesis’s code (E1 to E10), translated by us. The split between “progress” and “what is missing” is ours; several quotes contain both.
Each question put to students grew out of something a manager said
The questionnaire has 37 statements for students to agree or disagree with, from 1 to 5. In the thesis appendix, each statement comes with the manager’s quote that inspired it. Answer five of them thinking of your own college and compare with the 513 students.
On the thesis’s scale, 3 means “I don’t know”, not “so-so”. Means and standard deviations from Table 3; quotes from Appendix B, without codes, because the appendix codes do not match those in Article 2.
Students give their best scores to the teachers and their worst to the labs
513 students answered, above the sample calculation’s minimum of 374; 43% are from Applied Social Sciences. Statements about teachers score above 4. Lab equipment, publicizing entrepreneurship and psychological support sit close to 3.
Bar from 1 to 5; the thin line marks 3, “I don’t know”. Our reading: an average close to 3 may mix people who disagree and people who do not know the topic, which fits the managers’ complaint about publicity.
When choosing the university, teaching quality weighed the most
Each factor in the questionnaire starts with the same idea: “this weighed in my decision to study here”. Before you look, place your bet: which one weighed the most?
Height = average of each factor’s first statement (Table 3), inside a box that goes up to 5. The column rises only after your bet.
The answers formed six factors in two blocks
A factor analysis checked whether each factor’s statements move together: 27 of the 37 stayed and 10 were dropped for measuring their factor poorly. The six factors form two blocks that also move together (correlation of 0.698).
Second-order loadings from Figure 2, question loadings from Table 5 and average variance extracted from Table 4. Filled dot: question kept; hollow: question dropped (our count from Table 5).
Teaching and getting along with teachers went hand in hand
The questionnaire puts teaching in one block and interaction and quality of life in the other. But in the answers, which pair of factors moves together the most? Place your bet.
Height = correlation between the factors (Table 6, from 0.338 to 0.672). Tap a column.
What the research suggests to those who run the university
University managers
Bring improvements to classrooms, labs, common spaces and connectivity into the institutional plan, and expand teacher training in more active methods.
Communication
Managers and students point to publicity as a weak spot: hard-to-read calls, an unfriendly website, innovation initiatives that do not reach students. A single portal is one of the ideas mentioned.
Students
Internships, projects with partners and exchange programs are among the best-rated statements as an edge in the job market (close to 4), even though they did not weigh in the choice.
Researchers
The author proposes applying the questionnaire at other universities, public and private, measuring value itself and testing whether the two blocks explain it.
What this research does not say
- How much each factor increases value. The questionnaire measured how students rate the factors and how the statements group together; value itself was not in the model. The author leaves that test for a future study. · according to the author and our observation
- A single university. It is a case study; to become an assessment tool, the sample has to grow and the questionnaire has to be applied elsewhere. · according to the author
- Perception, not inspection. The scores say what students think of the facilities and teaching, not the measured condition of classrooms and labs. · our observation
- One factor at the limit. Infrastructure had an average variance extracted of 0.444, below the 0.5 benchmark; the author kept it because it was close and weighs in the block. · according to the author
Credits
FABRIZ, Sergio Moacir. Fatores determinantes do valor no ensino superior: um estudo de caso em uma universidade pública do estado do Paraná. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration), Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, 2025. Advisor: Prof. Dimária Silva e Meirelles.
Thesis in a three-article format; the first was accepted at Enangrad, a Brazilian business education conference. Analyses in SPSS and SmartPLS 4. Like the thesis itself, this page does not name the university. This version simplifies the work for the general public; the full tables are in the original text.