The competition between Universities brought concepts such as strategic management, strategic planning, and stakeholder management into the agenda of higher education. Stakeholder analysis, which is known as the key element of strategic planning, is essential to ensure participation. Thus, the views and supports of various stakeholder groups can be taken into account in the decision taken process. Higher education institutions can incorporate the expectations of various groups into their management practices by establishing more useful relationships with various stakeholders. The purpose of this study, created within the framework of the qualitative research tradition, is to identify the most important strategic stakeholders of universities by defining all persons, institutions, and organizations directly or indirectly related to Turkish Universities. The research findings indicate that the stakeholder lists prepared by the universities show a variety and are difficult to quantify. 118 stakeholders are identified by the universities. However, instead of expressing all stakeholders, stakeholders were divided into categories and sub-groups belonging to these categories, which constituted an economic method in stakeholder analysis. At the center of the stakeholder categories are the students and the people working in the academic and administrative units, who are both affecting and affected by the institution. Stakeholders involved in this group are internal stakeholders. Among the categories defined for the external stakeholders, there are the governmental departments, international organizations, private sector, non-governmental organizations, regulatory agencies, media organizations, and research centers.