Increased competition for the international student market has motivated universities to modernize their marketing strategies. Community engagement is an important component of students' international university experience and represents a potential point of competitive advantage. Developing marketing strategies around university-student-community engagement (U-S-CE) requires an understanding of the perspectives of international students, the university and the community. We anchored our study in value co-creation which is a principle of the service dominant logic framework found in the marketing literature. With limited research in the area, a qualitative approach was appropriate. Interviews were undertaken with key university members (n?=?4) and community members (n?=?5) concurrently with focus groups of international students (n?=?22) at a single university. Based on the degree of co-creation by international students in U-S-CE, three groups emerged: "consumers," "collaborators" and "co-designers." This study offers theoretical and practical insight, providing a platform for further research into U-S-CE.