Malaysia has a good reputation in academic excellence and has been recognized as an international education hub that attracts students from many different countries around the world. Recently, Malaysian universities have resulted in the drop of rankings on QS World University Rankings (NST, 2019). In total, 157 departments at Malaysian universities are ranked with 76 departments record a drop-in rank this year, while only 11 record improvements. Based on the survey, employers recording less satisfaction with the country’s graduates outweighs improvement in Malaysian research performance. Based on the survey as well, employers recording less satisfaction with the country’s graduates outweigh improvement in Malaysian research performance. It should be noted that higher educational institutions are vital in providing and preparing the students for the attributes such as knowledge, thinking skills, communication skills, information skills, learning how to learn, cultural understanding and professional skills. In essence, student expectation from higher education institutions will include the faculty relationship with the students, activities and facilities provided to students and different level of satisfaction related to teaching and learning. These expectations directly impact overall student satisfaction. For management and organizations, quality of service served as an important goal in achieving a high level of satisfaction, be it non-for-profit or educational organizations. The research university realizes the contribution of a good university image to positive word-of-month, which in turn enhances recruitment rates and attracts higher quality students. With the goal of providing a better understanding of the process involved in building a good school reputation, this study investigates the level of satisfaction among student research university, to identify teaching quality and university facilities as factors that influence student satisfaction besides to identify the impact of student satisfaction on university image. A cross-sectional empirical study with a research framework was developed to test three hypotheses by analyzing data collected from a questionnaire survey. The questionnaires were distributed to 405 students in five research universities in Malaysia. The collected data were analyzed using quantitative statistical methods. The study’s findings show that teaching a quality and university facility positively correlates to student satisfaction, that university facilities strongly dominant factors influence student satisfaction. Besides, student satisfaction positively impacts on university image. The study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of research university by verifying the relationships between teaching quality, university facilities, student satisfaction, and university image. Future research, higher education institute or collaborative partners such as sponsored bodies could manage to resources strategically and effectively by determining the strength and weaknesses and exchanging views in order to improvise the domain of their services. In the case of research university, the exit survey of graduating students can enlighten us on what aspect of improvement should be taken by the institute or collaborative partner, in this case Public Service Department (PSD) as a main sponsored bodies in Malaysia in order for us to develop human capital as be a key priority to empower and enabling Malaysia to be a market-oriented talent hub by attracting, nurturing and retaining the right expertise to spur economic growth.
