THE USE OF CLUSTER ANALYSIS FOR MARKET SEGMENTATION OF CANDIDATES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION TARGETING UNIVERSITIES IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Czech education system faced some huge changes during last decades (1990 2015). The number of students was high in the beginning of this decade therefore new universities or educational institutions were established. Later on (last 5 years) we are facing the reverse trend of decreasing number of students. Some universities have serious financial problems and are close to finishing with their activities. Forecast for next 5 - 10 years could be better due to increasing number of students again. Universities must change the way how to think about students and how to attract them to study their study programmes. One of the possible ways is to create study programme to be attractive for students which mean using customer-oriented approach to become dominant university at region. We identified the aspect of students' decision making process - choosing the specific needs why to study at specific university and we made the analysis of these needs.