Institutional sustainability mediates the effects of university branding on student loyalty

The objective of this study is to analyse the mediating role of perceived institutional sustainability as a mechanism that strengthens the relationships between reputation, brand image and loyalty in higher education institutions. Although the university branding literature has established image and reputation as drivers of student loyalty, theoretical and managerial gaps remain regarding the way in which perceived sustainability may explain the relationships among these university branding variables, while delimiting its specific and distinguishable effects in relation to reputation and image. A quantitative approach was adopted using a survey method, collecting data from 1,747 students across twelve accredited higher education institutions in Colombia. The proposed relationships were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that perceived institutional sustainability acts as a partial mediator in the relationships between university brand image, institutional reputation and student loyalty. In addition, the two exogenous variables, namely brand image and institutional reputation, exert direct and significant effects on student loyalty. They also have positive and significant indirect effects through perceived sustainability. Overall, the proposed model explained 70.9% of the variance in student loyalty, indicating a high and methodologically sound level of explanatory power These findings suggest that perceived sustainability does not replace the role of image or reputation; rather, it operates as a complementary mechanism that helps explain how institutional perceptions are translated into student loyalty. Taken together, the results support a complementary, rather than substitutive, interpretation of the role of sustainability in university branding.