Initiated in 2010 as a student exchange initiative between Korea, Japan, and China under the auspices of the their respective leaders, the CAMPUS Asia project was expanded in 2021 to include ASEAN countries, with the objective of cultivating a pan-Asian higher education community that extends beyond East Asia. This paper investigates the impact of students’ cultural affinity-based motivations for participation on the development of a pan-Asian community identity, and explores the role of educational satisfaction as a mediating variable. Utilizing descriptive statistics, simple regression, and mediation analysis techniques, this study analyzes survey data collected from 157 participants of the CAMPUS Asia Plus program, spanning from September 2021 to December 2022. The findings reveal that cultural affinity-based motivations significantly contribute to students’ perceptions of a pan-Asian community. Additionally, educational satisfaction was found to partially mediate the relationship between cultural affinity-based participation motivation and the sense of a pan-Asian community. These results offer critical insights into student selection and program management strategies that could enhance the efficacy of the CAMPUS Asia Plus project in achieving its educational and policy objectives.