Massification and quality of service in open access faculties in Morocco: An application of the SERVQUAL model to the FSJES of Fez

AbstractAgainst a backdrop of increased competition, higher education institutions, whether private or public, are compelled to implement new strategies aimed at improving the quality of the services they offer whilst meeting market demands; hence the need to carry out a diagnostic assessment of their services. This study aims to assess the quality of service as perceived by students at the Faculty of Legal, Economics and Social Sciences at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez (FSJES-FEZ), using a rigorous quantitative cross-sectional approach based on the SERVQUAL instrument, applied to a sample of 306 students enrolled in Master’s programmes for the 2025–2026 academic year. The results revealed negative gaps across the five dimensions of service quality, with Tangibility recording the most critical deficit (–3.12) and Assurance the lowest score (–1.88), for an overall average gap of (–2.53). Whilst a notable paradox emerges, the Assurance dimension, deemed the most important by 29.2% of the students surveyed, paradoxically shows the smallest deficit, whereas Tangibility show the most critical deficit, this study proposes the use of Mitchell et al.’s stakeholder framework (1997) to interpret the hierarchy of the deficits observed, as well as to draw on the theory of the adaptation of aspirations, which opens up new perspectives on how students adjust their expectations in a context of structural massification. Furthermore, the results call for targeted institutional responses concerning physical infrastructure, the digitisation of administrative procedures, and the strengthening of the human dimension of the teaching relationshipClassification JEL: I23, L1, I23Paper type: Empirical Research