Public and private Albanian universities: the admission process and the factors considering by students in choosing between them

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the admission process in public and private Albanian Universities. Another aim is to identify the factors considering by students perspective in choosing between a public and private university in Albania. The first analyse is qualitative and quantitative, while the latter one is only quantitative. The quantitative analyse is based on a questionnaire with 8 articles. The questionnaire is with self-report, completed by 179 students of the first year of schooling (May, 2018), attending the Public Universities of Tirana and Shkodra. Regarding the first aim, the actual admission process in institutions of Albanian higher education is centralised, penalize students' candidates and doesn't allow flexibility in designing admission politics. Regarding the second one, from the answers, 69.8% choose a public university, while 30.2% in different condition will choose a private university. These numbers change in dependence from the faculty and location; in both cases of choosing between a private and public university, the first reason listed is the professionalism, but however must be emphasised the slightly differences in meaning on "professionalism" when refer one or other university; the second reasons goes for the low tuition fees in public universities, which is replaced with "good infrastructure" in private universities; the reliability is the third reason in both cases; in opposite with the general opinion, the tradition and history of public university is listed in the fourth place. Finding of the differences between private and public universities from the perspective of students is a good start to draft and make better educational politics in higher education.