The present study describes the zone of tolerance for students’ service expectations and determines the student satisfaction level for higher education institutes. It attempts to diagnose the service quality level of administrative units, such as services provided by the registrar, library, faculty/school offices, rector’s office, dormitories, sports and health centre in a university setting. Aconceptual model HEDZOT is presented in this study, and the results demonstrate that evaluation of services can be scaled according to different types of expectations—‘desired’ and ‘adequate’—and that students use these two types of expectations as a comparison standard in evaluating higher education services. The findings reveal that students have a narrow zone of tolerance with regards to the services provided by higher education.

Keywords: Higher education, Service quality, Student satisfaction, Zone of tolerance.