The concept of quality in tertiary education is important not only for education providers but also for society as a whole which expects the education to have a high level of quality and wants to maintain its trust in the education system on the national and international level. The objective of this paper is therefore to identify variables that, from the perspective of university students, affect the quality of taught courses, and use the results to formulate recommendations that would improve the quality of teaching at universities. Primary data was obtained through a quantitative survey among students in the Master's programme at a selected public university involving 450 respondents. The results showed that the overall rating of a course is more strongly influenced by variables related to the course's outcome, content and concept than the rating of the teacher. The main value lies in the general overview of the variables influencing the perception of the quality of taught courses by students that is beneficial for teachers who are preparing a course and also for higher education institutions developing a methodology for evaluating the quality of teaching and teachers.