INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

OF TURKISH HIGHER
EDUCATION
Research on The Students' Mobility, Perception, and the Turkish Market
Penetration Based on Education Economy

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

EM7165 - MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
Final Assignment Project
Saad Banat ID: 924820919
 Abstract

This research paper grasped the international student’s and the possible international students’
mobility and perception about the Turkish higher education institutes and systems. Also, the
report tackled the marketing techniques that can be adopted by all Turkey’s higher education
decision makers and marketing agents to improve the international marketing of the Turkish
higher education and overall penetration based on the international education economy. The
research methodology of this research paper consists of analysing published articles and
documents, online resources, e-journals, interviews, past research papers, as well as a survey
of a sample size of 57 people, within the 18-24 age range, conducted for the sole purpose of
gathering feedback from several people to add supporting data to this paper. Findings show
that Turkey’s higher education institutes, up to this moment, have not been properly reaching
their target audience, with 64.9% of people who conducted my survey claiming they did not
see Turkish universities in results when they were looking up their desired majors on Google
or other search engines, rather most who have considered studying in Turkey have heard about
it by word of mouth only. Also, almost 52.6% of our survey takers have never seen a single
advertisement about higher education in Turkey online. It is recommended that Turkey’s higher
education marketing strategies should be improved through omni-channel marketing by
recruiting experienced marketing specialists to improve the high standard of education in
Turkey’s exposure throughout social platforms, communication and the internet’s search
engines and advertisement optimization.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... I
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
2. Government Strategies and Funding to Aid Student Mobility .......................................... 1
2.1. Strategic Partnership and Political Relationships........................................................ 2
2.2. Governmental Funding Role in Higher Education for International Students ............ 2
2.2.1. Tuition Fees and Scholarships ............................................................................. 2
2.2.2. Cost of Living in Turkey...................................................................................... 3
3. International Students’ Perception on Turkey’s Higher Education ................................... 4
3.1. “The Critical Foundational Elements” ........................................................................ 4
3.1.1. The Website ......................................................................................................... 4
3.1.2. The Application and Admission Process ............................................................. 5
3.2. The Emotional Connection.......................................................................................... 5
4. Turkey’s Higher Education International Market Performance ........................................ 6
4.1. Data Mining and Analysis ........................................................................................... 6
4.2. Market Segmentation .................................................................................................. 6
4.3. Market Targeting ......................................................................................................... 7
4.3.1. Reaching the Target Market................................................................................. 7
4.3.2. Customizing a Student-Based Experience ........................................................... 7
5. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 8
5.1. Findings ....................................................................................................................... 8
5.2. Recommendations ....................................................................................................... 8
References ................................................................................................................................ 10
Index ........................................................................................................................................ 11

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 1. Introduction
Turkey’s education sector is flourishing, with 7,940,615 higher education students
enrolled in the year 2019/2020 (Study in Turkey, 2019)1 throughout its many private and
public universities. In 2018, Turkey’s higher education system was ranked 10th world-wide
for the number of international students in higher education, hosting 125,138 international
students, based on data posted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) (Turkey is in the First 10 in the World in Receiving International
Students to Higher Education, 2020). As globalization increased and the educational
economy expanded dramatically in the past few years, competition in the international
education market has been on the rise, fast, and Turkey has implemented policy and
practices changes in higher education, which improved its placement through the past
decade but as other countries achieved rapid growth in their own higher education systems,
Turkey has been losing its ranks, demanding a change.
There is no doubt that the Turkish government and the Turkey Council of Higher
Education (YÖK) have been putting tremendous efforts, for decades, into making Turkey
a world-leading higher education target for international students. Based on the National
Education Statistics Report in 2016, 13% of the total Turkish government’s spend is on
education. This enormous spend is optimized for good reason; a study on the relationship
between Turkey’s education expenses and Turkey’s economic growth in the years from
1970-2012 has yielded a positive relationship and that allocating more funds towards the
educational system could improve and diversify Turkish economy more (Mercan & Sezer,
2014). Investments in advanced and experienced academic marketing specialists, as well
as adopting new techniques to tackle “the new educational economy” might result in
promising outcomes for the years coming and Turkey’s economy.
Throughout this report, I will be reviewing and assessing present governmental
strategies and techniques used by YÖK and how they affect students’ mobility and
satisfaction, then I will be moving to gather data about international students and potential
students’ perception of Turkish higher education system and how it can be improved,
proceeding to Turkey’s higher education international market penetration and effectivity,
all by using published reports, interviews, documents and articles, along with a survey
(sample size of 57) that I distributed and analyzed for the matter. Eventually, I will be
summing up all my findings, concluding statements and future recommendations in the
results and findings section.

2. Government Strategies and Funding to Aid Student Mobility

This section of the report tackles strategic moves that have been made by the Turkish
government through and for its higher education marketing, such as diplomatic investments
in growing relationships between Turkey and other regions of power, seeking political
benefits and connections, improving student mobility and exchange programs reach. Also,
the government-provided scholarships, direct and indirect financial aids and living
assistance are going to be discussed briefly, along with other financial factors affecting
higher education in Turkey.

1
“Study in Turkey” is a governmental website in Turkey managed by the Council of Higher Education. The
number of students mentioned is from data and statistics published on their website, more details can be found
on Statistic - Study in Turkey.

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 2.1. Strategic Partnership and Political Relationships
The internationalization of higher education allows strategically important countries to
form relationships helping them to modernize their institutions, achieve high-quality
teaching, integrate higher education businesses, as well as come up with innovative
approaches together. For these reasons, partnerships are supported by international
organizations and systems in higher education (Kerr, 1990). Such international partnerships
can be seen in the Sorbonne and Bologna Declaration under European Higher Education
Area (EHEA)2 policies. By becoming a part of the Bologna Process, Turkey has been
manipulating its higher education system in order to benefit from the partnership and work
on projects along with higher education institutes across Europe (Geden & Gür, 2018).
Also, through regional relationships with the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans, Turkey
aims to further enhance its influence and cooperation with regional countries. Given that
Turkey stands as a “a plausible yet volatile actor on the edge of the subsystems of
continental Europe and the Middle East” (Robins, 2013, p.382), Higher education stands
out as one of the key factors for building good relationships and policies with regional
powers and the EU, providing Turkey with a wide channel of Investments. Erasmus
Program, a European Union exchange student program, improved higher education student
mobility a lot, both inbound and outbound from Turkey, allowing students to get the chance
to meet new people, experience diverse cultures and immerse in a more exciting and
beneficial study experience.
2.2. Governmental Funding Role in Higher Education for International Students
For International students, funding is usually a huge factor to be taken in consideration.
For a student to leave his/her home country or country of residence to a foreign country,
alone, many expenses are to be taken in consideration. Most importantly is usually the
university’s tuition fee, followed by living expenses. A government that can provide
financial needs that suit every type of international student and their respective financial
state would probably increase the number of inbound international students noticeably.
2.2.1. Tuition Fees and Scholarships
Scholarships widely attract all types of students, whether it is to acknowledge their
performances, both academically, practically or through extra-curricular activities and
sports, or to aid them financially. In Turkey, in addition to scholarships provided by higher
education institutes themselves, both private and public, two types of scholarships are
provided by the Turkish government: Turkiye Scholarships and TUBITAK scholarships.

Turkiye Scholarships now reach up to 175 countries with over 120 thousand
applications, awarding 5 thousand students short-term, undergraduate, and graduate
scholarships yearly, helping spread out information about Turkey’s higher education and
attract more students (Geden & Gür, 2018). Figures 1-2 below shows relevant readings
from a survey3 on international students’ perception on higher education in Turkey.

2
The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is a unique international higher education collaboration that
results from the political will of 49 countries.
3
I have prepared and distributed a survey, gathering feedback from 56 people, that consists of questions
revolving around international students’ perception, experience and opinions about enrolment in Turkish higher
education institutes. Survey can be accessed on https://forms.gle/aPtsDju14ZpWR8MCA

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 Figure 1: Pie chart extracted from my survey showing
Figure 2: Pie chart showing 51.8% of survey takers have
51.8% of survey takers have been recommended to study in
considered studying in Turkey.
Turkey by someone.
TUBITAK (short for Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey)
Scholarship funds undergraduate, as well as graduate students and international
researchers. It primarily focuses on international students in science and education fields
coming from least developed countries to establish and improve Turkey’s relations with
least developed countries. Besides that, TUBITAK Scholarships aim to attract high
achieving undergraduates by providing the funds to medal winners at International Science
Olympiads (Geden & Gür, 2018).

Figure 3: Pie chart from survey showing that most of whom considered Turkey as an
option for higher education saw the tuition fees affordable.

2.2.2. Cost of Living in Turkey

As seen in Figure 4 on the left, as per

data from 2019, Turkey’s cost of living
index (relative to living in the USA being
100) is 42, placing it as the 85th on a table
comparing cost of living world-wide (Cost
of living in a global comparison, 2019),
which makes Turkey relatively very
affordable for an international student to
live in.
As for transportation, students get
discounted prices for public transportation
widely available throughout the country.
Also, reportedly some areas organized free
transportation for students who are taking
the Higher Education Institutions Exam
(YKS) to and from the venue (Free
transportation for students to Take YKS
exam in Diyarbakır, 2019).

Figure 4: Comparison of worldwide cost of living.

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 3. International Students’ Perception on Turkey’s Higher Education
When it comes to the success of any type of business, one of the key determining factors
is thee customer’s perception of the brand and the product or service it provides. In the first
half of the 1990s, innovative institutions of higher education seeking international approval
of some of their programs sought accreditation with the ABET (Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology-USA). Most of the four universities' engineering programs
were assessed by ABET at various times and obtained "substantial equivalence" from
ABET, the only accreditation for countries not in the US by ABET. Since then, these
universities have cooperated with ABET for continuous improvement of engineering
programs and have been followed by more higher education institutions afterwards. This
collaboration has also encouraged all engineering schools to establish a national quality
assurance framework for engineering programs (Demiray, Nagy, & Yilmaz, 2007), which
improves Turkey’s higher education overall image to potential international students.
Besides accreditation and level of education, other factors largely affect potential
students’ perception on education, and with it their decision to enroll in a certain higher
education institute or not. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following.
3.1. “The Critical Foundational Elements”
Brad Frank, the CMO at Collegis Education, in an interview with the CEO of the
American Marketing Association, Russ Klein, spoke about what he believes are the two
critical foundational elements that are going to support and move your business forward,
and that they are better tackled before starting to work for pay for media presence and
advertising. The two critical elements that should be focused on would be the institute’s
website and admission process (Klein & Frank, 2019)4. He then further added the
importance of the institute’s data infrastructure.
3.1.1. The Website
From Brad’s perspective, “the website is the front door to your school”. Making the
website easy to navigate, having the process for prospective students to go through the
required steps, or to find what they need, easy and straight-forward is the first thing an
institute should work on (Klein & Frank, 2019). He also talked about data mining from
your website and user-interactions and optimize your prospective student’s website
experience based on that.
Statistics from my survey, shown in Figure 5 on the following page, state that 67.6%
of potential international students did not find the university’s websites to be clear and
straight-forward, with 13.5% of the survey sample mentioning that this was the reason they
had to eliminate Turkey from their choices, rather than the usual financial or traveling
difficulties that other countries might present.

4
In a part of an interview titled “Making an Emotional Connection with Prospective Students”, Brad Frank, the
CMO at Collegis Education was interviewed by the CEO of the American Marketing Association, Russ Klein,
to further discuss international education marketing techniques.

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 Figure 5: Prospective students' perception on Turkey's universities websites.

3.1.2. The Application and Admission Process

The second critical element, as stated by Brad, is the ease or simplicity of the admission
process. Prospective students are usually applying to several universities, exploring all their
options. When an individual finds a process too long, complicated and/or is unable to find
the proper guidance or help when they need it, chances are that they would not continue
the application, even if they were initially interested in that specific university. To back up
the previous statement, Figure 6, below, shows supporting data showing similar results as
to their satisfaction with the websites.

Figure 6: Prospective students’ opinions on admission processes.

Another published study concerned with the factors influencing international student’s
choice to study in Turkey sum up their findings, explaining that international students are
not properly guided and informed during their applications and enrolment processes. Also,
another one of the major challenges faced by international students they interviewed was
the shortage of needed information and guidance needed in processes before and after
arriving (Özoğlu, Gür, & Coşkun, 2015).
3.2. The Emotional Connection
The focus and the title of Klein and Frank’s interview I mentioned earlier was the
emotional connection with prospective students. Interestingly, Brad mentions that enrolling
in a certain program in a specific institute starts a bond that does not only last as long as
your course does, but rather stays with you forever (Klein & Frank, 2019); he explains that
for a student, especially in higher education, to want to make the decision to enroll in a
university that is going to end up in their resume, leave an impression on them afterwards

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 and become a part of their identity, there has to be an emotional connection made
beforehand to spark that feeling of comfort and longing.
For a higher education institute to add emotional and a personal value to its connection
with its prospective students, it is encouraged to increase the amount of one-to-one
communication through live chats in websites, check up calls and assistance. Also,
additionally, a university can tell inspiring stories of their alumni from before enrolling in
their programs, during and after, to motivate the prospective student to join while
passionate and driven.
4. Turkey’s Higher Education International Market Performance
Providing quality education is one of the most crucial and sought-after services
available in the market and is also a potentially huge source of income to a country if the
sector was managed properly. Throughout the past decade, Turkey was on the rise in terms
of its higher education in the international market, but in the past couple of years, multiple
other countries have been making rapid progress, making their way up in the international
education economy, acquiring higher percentages, while Turkey started falling back.
In order for Turkey to get its ranks up and increase its penetration in the international
market and based on education economy, multiple aspects should be considered. The effect of
globalization gave birth to a new type of economy and to win in such competition, new and
innovative approaches are required. Understanding your competition and your target audience
is a big step in innovating a different, unique, and attractive education system (Nelson, 2017)5.
To understand the market in an omni-channel world and penetrate it efficiently, data analysis
is required, followed by market segmentation, market targeting and then working on ways to
reach your target market.
4.1. Data Mining and Analysis
After forming your website and working on your admission process as a start, now
comes the time to work on an effective data infrastructure. The market should be scanned
through regional and global statistics and reports to find out more about prospective
students all over the world and what they are interested in.
One way to do so efficiently would be for higher education institutes to mine their
websites for data to find out what interests their prospective students the most, what they
are going after and gathering the right information. Afterwards, this data can be used to
make data-based decisions to optimize the user-experience (Nelson, 2017), customizing the
website in a way that is user-based, with more exposure to resources and pages most
accessed by visitors. This could be done by the institute’s academic marketing planners or
third-party companies to assist with the process.
The other approach could be done from Turkey Council of Higher Education (YÖK)
side. This approach would be in the means of creating a website or application that provides
reach for all higher education institutes in Turkey to prospective students. As well as
providing a much larger scale of data collection for the concerned departments, allowing
much more effective planning and optimization.
4.2. Market Segmentation
To tackle an international, global market, there must be means of segmentation in use
to better understand and group your customers and probable service buyers. The “one size

5
In an interview with Nick Nelson, brand strategist and creative executive in the American Marketing
Association, held in 2017, Zack Brooke and Nick Nelson discuss simple ways to market to potential students.

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fits all” educational approach where students come from a similar group, the same cultural
background and a tracked and known entry level skill set, belongs to old economics
(Demiray, Nagy, & Yilmaz, 2007). Traditional learning revolved around passing by
traditional knowledge through standard methods, expecting students to accept the
knowledge passed and cooperate with the process. Traditional universities had their target
markets consist of geographical proximity, accreditation level, language used and culturally
defined learning process; this style of marketing is a thing of the past perceptions of
learning (University of Sydney 2003).
The global market has prospective students of all cultural backgrounds, languages,
financial status, religions, genders, philosophical perspectives, and expectations. It is
important for higher education providers and marketing specialists to divide this huge
market into segments on the basis of geographic, demographic, psychographic, and
behaviors, only then can it be possible to efficiently target groups of people.
4.3. Market Targeting
After gathering sufficient data about the international market and types of potential
students, the next step would be targeting the most attractive segment using the proper
marketing tools, teaching styles and assessment tools.
4.3.1. Reaching the Target Market
Targeting a specific market is practically useless if the proper marketing strategies were
not implemented to reach your prospective students. Brad Frank (Frank, 2019) explains
that if there are specific majors or study programs that the institute consider to be
competitive in, it should be searched on Google and if the institute does not appear in the
top half of the results, it means that people and prospective students are probably not going
to know it, even if you offer competitive quality. Another important medium between
universities and prospective students is social media advertising and visual ad pop-ups.

Figure 7: University appearance in search results Figure 8: University appearance in online advertisements

4.3.2. Customizing a Student-Based Experience

In order to appeal to a larger number of students, higher education Institutions should
focus on marketing student-based study experiences in a similar way that big corporations
use client-based marketing strategies. Nagy (forthcoming 2007) explains with a case study
that education providers could dramatically improve student outcomes by carefully
acknowledging the requirements of a certain segment or niche and customizing the learning
styles and assessment tools for them. He further explains how different students prefer
different learning methods, with some students responding more efficiently to visual
learning, practical experiments, verbal forms of teaching, or written and spoken education.
It should be taken into consideration that some also might not be interested or have the
means to travel into a foreign country but would probably be interested in enrolling in

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 Turkey to receive a higher education degree, so distance education programs and
institutions would play an important role in marketing Turkey’s higher education system.
5. Conclusion
In this report, international students’ mobility and perception on the Turkish higher
education, as well as Turkey’s higher education international market penetration have been
discussed thoroughly, using the aid of multiple online articles, published researches and
reports, interviews, and a survey conducted to gather relevant data regarding the topic.
5.1. Findings
To sum up my findings, the report showed that when it came to student’s mobility,
Turkey provides many opportunities for all types of people to pursue their higher education
in it as a student or an exchange student, with the majority saying that they found Turkey
affordable, however, statistical analysis showed that students lack proper guidance as for
what they are supposed to do before and after arriving to Turkey. As for students’
perception on Turkish higher education, it was concluded that more than 50% of students
found the websites and the admission process rather inconvenient and complicated, but, as
shown in Figure 9 below, it was shown that, from those who did continue their higher
education studies, a higher percentage of students enrolling in Turkey was observed than
students choosing other countries.

Figure 9: Students who enrolled in a post-graduate program.

Regarding the Turkish higher education system penetration in the international market, it
was observed that 52.6% of all individuals who have taken my survey have been recommended
to study in Turkey by someone else, showing a relatively good word-of-mouth marketing.
However, 52.6% of individuals who have taken my survey stated that they have not ever seen
online ads for higher education in Turkey and 64.9% did not see results in Turkey when looking
up their majors and fields of interest on Google and other search engines, which implies major
improvements are needed in the marketing sector.
5.2. Recommendations
In reference to the mentioned findings, I would highly encourage the following:
- An increase in student focus through websites and other media, improving the
perspective student’s experience through one-on-one communication methods and
follow-ups.
- For admission processes to be made simpler, with less equivalency requirements for
internationally accredited degrees, as well as, preferably, a website or application that
unites all possible higher education institutions offering the subject of interest for a
prospective student.

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- Serious investment in data mining techniques as well as public exposure and marketing
methods, possibly through third party experienced higher education marketing
specialists.
- Providing and clearly showing the availability of diverse teaching methods.

9
References
Cost of living in a global comparison. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2021, from
https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
Demiray, D. U., Nagy, D. J., & Yilmaz, D. R. (2007). STRATEGIES FOR THE MARKETING
OF HIGHER EDUCATION WITH COMOPARATIVE CONTEXTUAL REFERENCES
BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND TURKEY. Turkey.
Destination Guides: Study in Turkey. (n.d.). Retrieved from Top Universities:
https://www.topuniversities.com/where-to-
study/asia/turkey/guide#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20international%20students,
as%20a%20higher%20education%20destination.
Frank, B. (2019). CMO at Collegis Educaties. (R. Klein, Interviewer)
Free transportation for students to Take yks exam in Diyarbakır. (2019, June 14). Retrieved
February 13, 2021, from https://www.raillynews.com/2019/06/free-access-to-students-
who-will-take-the-exams-in-diarrhea/
Kerr, C. (1990). The Internationalisation of Learning and the Nationalisation of the Purposes
of Higher Education: Two ’Laws of Motion’ in Conflict? European Journal of Education,
25(1):5–22.
Geden, & Gür, A. (2018). Globalisation, Internationalisation of Higher education and Turkey's
Inward Student Mobility. Ankara: Migration Policy Center.
Mercan, M., & Sezer, S. (2014). The effect of education expenditure on economic growth: The
case. Turkey: Elsevier Ltd.

Nagy, J. (forthcoming) (2007). Market forces in higher education: cheating and the student-
centred learning paradigm, book chapter in “Ethical Practices and Implications in
Distance Learning” A book edited by Ugur Demiray, Anadolu University, Turkey and
Ramesh C. Sharma, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India.
Nelson, N. (2017, November 22). Brand Strategist and Creative Executive. (Z. Brooke,
Interviewer)
Özoğlu, M., Gür, B. S., & Coşkun, İ. (2015). Factors Influencing International Students'
Choice to Study in Turkey and Challenges they Experience in Turkey. Ankara: Murat
Özoğlu.
Turkey is in the First 10 in the World in Receiving International Students to Higher Education.
(2020). Retrieved from Master Portal Turkey.
Turkey, S. i. (2019). Retrieved from Study in Turkey:
https://www.studyinturkey.gov.tr/StudyinTurkey/_PartStatistic
University of Sydney, (2003). Submission to the Committee for the Review of Teaching and
Teacher Education, Submission number RTTE189, May 2003.

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Index

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