Publication Details
Abstract
Survey-based diagnostics of university competitiveness usually end with a list of the lowest-rated factors, and resources go where the gap is largest. The paper shows that this rule diverges from a rule that accounts for the importance of each factor in university choice. The study uses a survey of the target audience of a private university in Tashkent (1,471 questionnaires, August–October 2026; 664 in the analytical sample after screening). Factor weights were obtained with two forced-choice instruments: a constant-sum allocation across blocks and the frequency of choosing a factor as decisive within blocks. The integral competitiveness index equals 0.692; the largest share of the shortfall falls on the employment and career block (18.5 per cent). The factor with the largest gap, discounts and scholarships, ranks nineteenth of twenty-two by priority. Excluding respondents who failed the attention check (50.7 per cent) lowers the index from 0.740 to 0.692 and the student net promoter score from +14.1 to +1.7. Consideration of the university and its choice at equal prices are associated with unaided awareness (odds ratios 2.36 and 3.63) but not with aided awareness. Ranking managerial tasks by priority, keeping screening rules constant across repeated measurements and using unaided awareness as the brand indicator are recommended.