For the development of a university’s quality system it is important to use an appropriate set of quality improvement methods to develop a model that best fits the institution. The selected quality system model must be in line with the institution’s strategic objectives, quality policy and key performance indicators (thereafter – KPIs) thus ensuring the sustainability and further development of the university. Modern trends show that universities are searching for new solutions and approaches in order to increase efficiency and improve quality by considering models with extensive analysis of their processes, stakeholders, risks and many more. The aim of this research is to discover if a suitable quality development model ensures the university’s sustainable development more than a standardised approach that mainly focuses on the conformity of requirements. Literature review of quality system models and university sustainability, analysis of EFQM Excellence Model Enabler criteria regarding sustainability are applied in this research. Quality standards, such as ISO 9001 promote sustainable growth, while the main objective still is to assess conformity. The Standard defines the minimum of requirements for the processes and the quality system in general. Whereas the research shows that the EFQM Excellence Model focuses on the self-assessment determining the current situation and the desired results with sustainable performance indicators. The EFQM Excellence Model should contribute to identifying the necessary improvements and promoting the implementation of development activities. Research is focused on sustainable development of the university quality system using the EFQM Excellence Model. The analysis of the EFQM Excellence Model criteria is limited to reviewing the Enabler criteria. In this research, sustainability is analysed in terms of higher education quality aspects. This comparison is made in different quality standards and excellence models. Furthermore, the research results show the main development activities that are related to the improvement of the sustainability of a university’s quality system.