The Factors Affecting the Demand for Higher Education in Albania – Case Study: An Analysis of the Demand for Second Cycle Master's Studies

Universities in the modern world are expected to seek and cultivate new strategies, to provide the right direction to promote knowledge and social equality. The quality of education is an important factor in attracting and retaining students, as it is a substantial investment made by their parents. Therefore, providing a quality service has become the most important objective for most Higher Education Institutions. The general objective of this paper is to investigate the experiences of students enrolled at university programs in different universities in the country through a questionnaire addressed to third-year Bachelor students, and how this experience will affect their decision-making process to continue or not the second cycle master's studies at these universities. The data from this questionnaire were processed in the R-Studio program. The analysis was conducted using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) tools for data analysis and testing of relationships between variables. With these methods, we demonstrate how factors such as: academic experience during the years of study, infrastructure and quality of the institution, and the academic offer for master's studies, influence the decision-making of students about whether to continue or not the studies of the second master's cycle, precisely in the universities where they have completed the first cycle of Bachelor studies.