Abstract—The objectives of this study were: 1) to explore factors that influence international students on their decision making process on selecting Thai universities as their preferred institution; 2) to identify the international students’ satisfaction factors towards the international programs in Thai universities; 3) to identify and compare satisfaction factors between public and private universities; 4) to propose the improvement on increasing satisfaction of the international students who are studying in the international program at Thai universities, and to attract more potential international students in the future. This study is quantitative research using satisfaction questionnaire with five-point Likert scale as a tool to measure the satisfaction level and primary data was collected from 271 foreign students studying in international programs in Thai universities. Eight key factors were incorporated and formulated in a conceptual model tested in this study. Data analysis and hypothesis testing were performed by using Pearson’s product moment correlation, stepwise multiple regression, and cross tabulation. The findings indicated that only four factors had significant positive influence on overall foreign students’ satisfaction toward international program in Thai higher education. These four factors were academic and education quality, financial and economic consideration, administrative and staff support, and image and prestige of the university. The multiple regression model with these four factors could predict 51.3% of the variance in the overall student satisfaction and the respondents’ results’ regarding overall satisfaction rating was in satisfied level. I. INTRODUCTION With the current fast pace of economic growth, the education sector is considered to be a key integral part for the better overall economics’ driving forces and major parts for the country development. Moreover, with globalization, the higher education sector is being internationalized by the mobility of institutions and students. Most of the international students are pursuing a better education programs that are being offered elsewhere other than their host countries in order to pursue a better opportunities in the future. In 2010, the international student population has reached nearly 3.6 million worldwide. It rises almost 50% over the past six years [1]. There was an increase of 4.7%, from 690,923 to 723,277, in mobility of international students in Manuscript received January 25, 2014; revised March 28, 2014. Teerapat Ngamkamollert and Athapol Ruangkanjanases are with Chulalongkorn Business School, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (e-mail: teerapat.ng558@cbs.chula.ac.th, athapol@cbs.chula.ac.th). the academic year of 2010-2011 [2]. According to the survey conducted by Office of the Higher Education Commission [3] in 2012, there were 20,309 foreign students, from 130 countries, enrolled in 103 Thai higher education institutions in 2011. The number of foreign students had increased by 0.74% from the 2010. The top three sending countries are China (8,444), Myanmar (1,481), and Laos (1,344) respectively. Region-wise, the largest body of international students was from Asia (17,287). The total numbers of foreign students were increased annually in the previous five years from 11,021 students in 2007 to 20,309 students in 2011. Higher education industry is growing strong and has high competition level. In order to attract more prospect foreign students to select Thailand as their preferred educational destination, satisfying the current students will be the best and most effective way to promote Thai education because word-of-mouth is an important role to make it successful. Therefore, it is critical to identify factors that influence foreign students’ satisfaction toward international program in Thai higher education institutions. II. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory Frederick Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene factor theory has become one of the most well recognized and extensively used theories for deriving the motivation and satisfaction factors. The first set of factors was “motivators” or “satisfiers”, which usually involves “job content” (motivation factors) and tend to lead to job satisfaction. The other set of factors was “hygiene factors” or “dissatisfies”, which usually involves “job context” (hygiene factors) and will be resulted in dissatisfaction when things are being deficient. According to DeShields Jr., Kara and Kaynak [4], the faculty performance and classes were considered to be satisfiers. These two influences are directly related to students’ college experience and satisfaction. On the contrary, the performance of advising staff is considered to be hygiene factor which could cause dissatisfaction. B. Social Learning Theory Wang, Taplin and Brown [5] used McLeod and Wainwright’s social learning theory to assess mainland Chinese students’ satisfaction of the study abroad program. Their study examined factors based on an individual’s internal factor (“preparation”) and external factors faced in a study abroad program (“culture” and “technical teaching”) which are beyond an individual’s control. Their findings Factors Influencing Foreign Students’ Satisfaction toward International Program in Thai Universities Teerapat Ngamkamollert and Athapol Ruangkanjanases International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, March 2015 170 DOI: 10.7763/IJIET.2015.V5.497 Index Terms—Foreign, students, factors, influencing, satisfaction, international, program, Thai universities.