Idealization of the rating as a marketing criterion for positioning and choosing a regional university
Abstract. The current approach to ranking universities does not always reflect the real situation in the field of higher education, the regional labor market and the economy, thus, the problem of positioning a university as an object of high rating arises during each admission campaign when the university cannot fully present its real attractiveness to its audience both in terms of competitiveness and customer orientation. The article considers approaches to the formation of rating criteria in the field of higher education, which is directly related to the competitiveness and customer orientation of each university against the background of formed incentives aimed at attracting applicants and other audiences interested in the educational activities of the university. The author conducted a study of criteria that are attractive to applicants during the entrance campaign to a regional university. The features of the university positioning during each academic year are highlighted. An algorithm has been developed for checking criteria for positioning and choosing a regional university at the stage of developing the concept of attractiveness of the university and further presenting it to the public during the admission campaign against the background of the current demand for educational products of the Rostov State University of Economics (RINH).
Keywords: university rating, university positioning criteria, target audience, motives and incentives for choosing a university, marketing positioning algorithm of a regional university
Highlights:
♦ the positioning of a higher educational institution should be based on a deep marketing study of criteria for choosing a university by applicants and their parents in the current period of time, without relying only on rating generalized assessments of the university professional activity in the field of higher education by experts and official ratings of the country and the world, in particular;
♦ it is important to appeal to the algorithm for constructing criteria aimed at target audiences, in which the main emphasis is on the marketing positioning of the university in the conditions of the regional labor market and economy, where at three stages of interaction of the triad "university - student - market" the university rating plays the role of a vector aimed at improving the educational product and educational activities of the university in accordance with the needs target audiences and society as a whole;
♦ the positioning of a regional university should be based on the direct relationship of the triad (where the second subject is represented by a potential audience): university - applicants - market (despite the fact that the latter category is multifaceted and ambiguous, including for higher education, however, the market acts as the "top of the pyramid", from which it is important to build on when forming the attractiveness of the university in terms of marketing positioning).
Narine R. Khachaturian - Rostov State University of Economics (RINH), Rostov-on-Don, Russia