Student engagement and retention are major concerns for universities around the world. It is vital to improve student retention by delivering quality education and engaging students in their studies, leading to student success and graduation and integration in the workforce. This study examines a degree of engagement in two Polish universities. The aim of this research was to evaluate and compare student engagement between two respondent groups. Data for this study were collected from 394 university students through selfevaluation using internet-based survey instrument. The differences between the universities were compared according to the current state, target state and, creative tension, describing the gap between a person’s feeling of current reality and target for future. The analysis of the test results clearly demonstrated the possibility to use such an application to evaluate the students’ engagement and, the comparison clearly identified considerable differences between the two university cases.