In today's world, the higher education system represents a means of developing the national and global economy by providing individual and collective benefits. Student loyalty is a critical measure in the success of higher education institutions that aim at retaining students until graduation and then attracting them back. As they fuel the knowledge economy, universities create a more educated labor market, providing employment and higher salaries. Having this major significance, it is vital to study the key determinants that persuade stakeholders to form long-term relationships with universities, revealing high loyalty. Aiming to stay competitive and survive the drastic, ongoing changes, successful universities thrive on building loyalty among all stakeholder groups, especially students. Despite the importance of the higher education institutions (HEIs), little research has been conducted on student loyalty. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to empirically examine the key factors influencing student loyalty by testing two models, namely perceived quality, brand associations, satisfaction, trust, and commitment, and to test the relationships among them. To analyze the data, a confirmatory factor analysis was applied where it explored the associations between items and constructs and, then, utilized a structural equation model (SEM) to investigate the relationships existing between constructs with the application of the STATA program. A structured questionnaire comprising of 66 questions was developed, using a five Likert scale. A total of 682 students from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies filled in the questionnaire. In both cases, the findings reveal that commitment has the most significant direct impact on loyalty. The other factors have an indirect effect, satisfaction having the most significant total effect, followed by trust and commitment. Therefore, universities must focus on improving service quality to develop positive brand associations, student satisfaction, trust, and commitment in developing student loyalty.
Keywords: brand associations; brand marketing; commitment; higher education; perceived quality; relationship marketing; satisfaction; student loyalty; trust.