New Insights to The National HEIs Rating System: Exploring the attributes of Student Experiential and Engagement Value Index (SEEVI)

University education is a rare purchase and an increasingly important as well as expensive decision in one's life. Students and their families are searching for pertinent information that will help them make informed choices in the selection of a university and/or an academic program to enrol. Although numerous ranking systems or league tables for higher education have been established, but they are often disputed and argued on their credibility and functionality. It was criticized generally because the ranking systems were not proficient as an informative and constructive tool to infer the quality of the academic institutions. It was noted recently that there has been a cultural change towards revitalizing the importance of teaching and the student experience. In response to this issue, the primary goal of this paper is to identify the students’ experiential value (extrinsic and intrinsic factors) and the engagement value (attributes). Focus groups are used to collect a broad qualitative understanding of perceptions and to gain richer insights pertaining to core issues of student experiential and engagement values on their current university enrolled. There are four groups of respondent, group A were UiTM students from Science and Technology cluster, group B were UiTM students from Social Science cluster, group C were non-UiTM students from Science and Technology cluster and group D were non-UiTM students from Social Science cluster. The outcomes of the findings link directly to the design of learning activities and the future direction of the research.