The impact of facilities on student choice of university

Despite rhetoric of added value, facilities management suffers a dearth of objectively researched, publicly available information concerning the impact of facilities on businesses at the level of market sectors or individual organisations. This paper aims to correct that situation for UK higher education institutions. A survey of undergraduates starting university in 2001 has confirmed, to high levels of significance, earlier research with the 2000 intake. For many institutions, facilities factors, where provided to a high standard, are perceived as having an important influence on students’ choice of institution. Year-on-year comparisons show strong agreement at the global level and, where data could be gathered, at the institutional level. Individual institutions show marked differences, significant at levels of confidence of over 95 per cent. A comparison of “reputational pull” and “facilities pull” is suggested as a means of differentiating the “brand” of different institutions.