Brand equity in higher education: Challenges and possible strategies for Spanish public universities

Introduction: This research was conducted to examine the role of brand equity applied to public universities. For this purpose, the main contributions of the literature related to the study were analysed in order to identify the variables that determine brand equity in the higher education sector. Methodology: An empirical study was carried out using a valid sample of 1.246 responses from three stakeholders (353 lecturers, 256 service staff and 658 students) belonging to two public universities in Valencia (Spain). SPPS v.19 and EQS 6.2 were used as working tools. Results and discussion: The results show the impact of each variable of brand equity, namely: brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Differences in perception between internal and external stakeholders are also shown. Conclusions: This research can help university managers by unravelling the key opinions of their staff and students about university brand equity, and especially about brand image, in order to develop appropriate strategies to maintain or improve it.