This paper discusses sustainable development issues in the higher education sector from the value chain per-spective. An adapted value chain is proposed for developing countries that would reflect the specific contextof the higher education sector of Poland and Vietnam. Secondary data were collected from two universitiesin Poland and Vietnam to do a comparative analysis of how sustainability is integrated into the educationalvalue chain. Our analysis shows that the two cases of Poland and Vietnam are quite different in most of thesupporting and primary activities when integrating sustainability issues in the educational value chain, exceptfor training. Then recommendations of value co-creation activities in the value chain for higher educationinstitutions in both countries are raised towards achieving sustainable development.