Students or Consumers?

Many institutions of higher education all over the world now view students as customers. One only has to take a look at the terminology used on web sites and in student booklets to see this. Student handbooks have come to be called "student consumer handbooks". Last year the UK government issued a student guide on student consumer rights: Higher Education: Guide to Consumer Rights for Students. Prepared by the Competition and Markets Authority, it addresses students as customers of their institutions - customers with rights as follows:

Students have consumer rights. Universities and other higher education providers that don’t meet their obligations to undergraduate students may be in breach of consumer protection law.

This guide sets out what undergraduate students need to know about their rights when choosing or taking a higher education course, and what to do if things go wrong. It is also of use to those advising or assisting students.

While no one can deny the rights of students to a proper education, with adequate prior information on the courses they take, in terms of objectives, teaching methods and assessment, a new study has revealed that students who perceive themselves as consumers tend to earn lower grades than others: “The Student-as-Consumer Approach in Higher Education and its Effects on Academic Performance”. The study, noting that a “consumer identity appears to be increasingly recognised by students,” was based on a survey of hundreds of students from 35 English universities. The researchers found a negative correlation between the extent to which a student behaved like a consumer and the level of their academic performance. They noted that a lower learner identity correlated with a higher consumer orientation. As a teacher, one is not surprized by such findings. It only makes sense that those who view themselves as buying their degrees would learn less than those who are genuinely eager to learn, better themselves, and contribute to society.

Nate Kreuter, an English Professor in the US once rightly remarked in Inside Higher Ed that the growing “student as consumer” mentality was eroding key values in higher education. He explained that luring students with “slick advertising”, providing them with easy credit, turning universities into brands, promoting growth for the sake of growth, and “vocationalizing higher education” is not the way to run a university; the only advantage of viewing students as customers is reminding ourselves that our universities are accountable to our students (“Customer Mentality”).

When universities themselves encourage the consumer mentality amongst students, treating pupils more like customers than active learners, this could backfire. As Dr. Louise Bunce, one of the authors of the UK study, noted, “While it is positive that universities are expected to offer more value to students as a result of higher tuition fees, students also need to be aware that learning cannot be bought.”

Students beware.