Realizing the goals of higher and continuing education calls for applying consumer research to university marketing techniques. Several higher education publics have been identified, and the idea of consuming publics can be subdivided into internal and external consumers, with the student viewed as the educational product. Internal consumers include future consumers (prospective students), current consumers (enrolled students), past consumers (alumni), and dissatisfied consumers (prior students). External customers are private industry, graduate schools, government, and other nonprofit organizations. Though certain market research scholars might dismiss higher education as an area that does not lend itself to their work, several reasons can be proposed for supporting involvement in this type of research (such as testing theoretical concepts concerning various higher education publics). To be effective, consumer research in higher education must meet several prerequisites (including that it be coordinated, continuous, implemented, and evaluated). Four areas recommended for future research are: (1) the need for market segmentation research, especially concerning nontraditional consumers; (2) a more thorough analysis of the needs of alumni, faculty, and staff and "other publics" of higher education; (3) understanding the unmet needs of the students who drop or stop out; and (4) the apparent need to anticipate future demands of external consumers. Contains 31 references. (SM)