Applying Behavioral Economics to the Business of Higher Education abstract Colleges and universities are keenly interested in the factors that motivate students or their parents with respect to key decisions: whether to apply, to enroll if accepted, to stay in school, or to contribute as alumni. Abundant evidence shows that traditional means of identifying these factors tend to produce misleading results. "Derived importance" approaches that draw on principles of behavioral economics fare much better. We demonstrate a variety of such methods and recount a series of applied situations in which they have played an important role in illuminating the reasons for key choices. Techniques discussed include group differences on objective vs. subjective measures; correlation; regression; vignette research including conjoint analysis; and market basket research. Word Cloud tied to frequencies of word use in the paper. Full text now available for FREE. copyright 2007-2018 by roland b. stark.

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