Management & Marketing (2009) Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 35-44 APPLYING MARKETING TO HIGHER EDUCATION: SCOPE AND LIMITS Luminiţa NICOLESCU Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest Abstract. This paper focuses on applying marketing concepts to the higher education sector. It starts by shortly reviewing some of the main marketing concepts and continues with an overview of how such marketing concepts can be relevantly used for the higher education sector. The extent and limits in their application are identified and dicussed and the paper also suggests which of the marketing ideas are already highly used in higher education and which ones still have to be developed. Keywords: marketing, higher education. 1. Introduction In the recent years, massive changes in policy, governance, structure and status of higher education have been taken place all over the world. Environmental changes, such as privatization, diversification, decentralization, internationalization and increased competition in higher education are common to most countries. These changes have an effect on how higher education institutions operate nowadays and they are seen as the driving forces for the marketization of higher education (Maringe, 2006). For instance, the privatization of higher education and cost sharing through the introduction of tuition fees in many European countries (Voss, Gruber, Szmigin, 2007; Maringe, 2006) have increased the „consumerist” approach to higher education and the need to consider students’ expectations more. Or, the strengthening of competition at institutional, national and international level (Sizer, 2001; Baird, 1998) requires new operating modes through the adoption of more market oriented and business like forms of operation within higher education institutions. The present paper tries to discuss the extent to which marketing ideas can be applied to higher education, having as a starting point the core of the marketing concept: the fact that it wants to satisfy the needs of the consumers. The paper starts by shortly looking at some of the main marketing approaches and concepts as they were developed for the business sector and continues with the discussion of how they can be applied in higher education.