Higher education institutions have generated competitive advantages by responding to the employment needs of the industry and designing an attractive offer to the academic community. This study aims to create a measurement tool for student perception of university brand positioning. For this purpose, a sequential mixed methodological design is carried out, which starts from a review of the literature to establish the measurement instrument and then is validated by exploratory factor analysis. The findings verified three constructs namely perceived quality, brand image and brand identity, related to the measurement of positioning in nine accredited universities in Colombia. Thus, it was found that the constructs fit the parameters for measuring university brand positioning from the student perspective. Limitations were found to be that it only covers the student perspective and does not involve other members of the university stakeholders and only in the city of Medellin. © 2024 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.