Examining Competition in Ontario’s Higher Education Market

Abstract

Financial challenges have forced many publicly funded academic institutions in Ontario to adopt a corporate model and to use market tools to compete in the higher education market and maintain their enrolment and revenue levels. The adoption of costly price and non-price competitive variables creates the need to measure the effect of these variables and to examine whether or not universities have received that for which they have paid. This study has analyzed how competition affects publicly funded universities in Ontario. Competition was examined by relating universities’ expenditures on price and non-price competitive variables (awards, marketing, graduates, and professors), as well as population related to the total number of applicants, total number of enrollees, and persistence ratio over the period of 2006 to 2013. The study used quantitative research design and panel data regression method to conduct the research. When examining the whole market, results show that there are positive and significant relationships between awards, marketing, population, and enrolment. Also, positive and significant relationships were observed between awards, professors, population, and total number of applicants. The result shows that awards and marketing have positive and significant effects on persistence ratio. This study also provides empirical evidence on how the effect of the adopted competitive variables varies for each university. This indicates that there are appropriate competitive variables for each publicly funded university, and that what could work for one university might not give the same results for other universities. Results provide relevant information for academic institutions on how to manage their applications and enrolment activities, and how to improve their persistence ratio.