Student satisfaction from the influence of the built environment, price fairness and teaching care: a study at a community-supported university Marcelo Benetti Corrêa da Silva, Juliana Matte, Suélen Bebber, Mayron Dalla Santa de Carvalho, Suane de Atayde Moschen and Ana Cristina Fachinelli Department of Business Management, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Brazil Abstract Purpose – This study aims to test and analyze factors that may influence the satisfaction of university students, specifically, from the built environment, price fairness and teaching care. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted with 250 students from a university in southern Brazil. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Findings – The main results proved that the built environment, price fairness and teaching care have a significant and positive influence on the satisfaction of university students. Practical implications – The factors presented explanation power for student satisfaction, which shows that they are essential aspects and, therefore, must be observed by universities to satisfy their students. Originality/value – The study identifies the impact of factors such as the environment, price and teaching service on student satisfaction. Keywords Students, Customer satisfaction, Pricing, Universities, Building, Teaching styles, Built environment, Student satisfaction, Price fairness, Teaching care, University Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Higher education institutions (HEIs) consider student satisfaction one of the main elements in determining the quality of their courses (Parahoo et al., 2016; Yukselturk and Yildirim, 2008), in addition to playing an essential role in defining the accuracy and authenticity of HEIs services (Sapri et al., 2009). To this end, university management should not address each dimension of student satisfaction in isolation, as these dimensions are closely interlinked. Considering such fact, researchers are concerned with the factors influencing higher education students’ satisfaction to find strategies for recruiting and retaining university students (Arambewela and Hall, 2009; O’Driscoll, 2012; Poon, 2019). A holistic approach is necessary to deal with value creation in higher education, as university students’ satisfaction has been treated under different perspectives (Lai et al., 2015). Funding: The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel and the Research Support Foundation of Rio Grande do Sul. Price fairness and teaching care Received 18 September 2020 Revised 12 November 2020 18 February 2021 Accepted 22 February 2021 Facilities © Emerald Publishing Limited 0263-2772 DOI 10.1108/F-09-2020-0112 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0263-2772.htm