and students are not customers College students are not customers: A political shorthand that needs to die.
fire the professors but leave the deans and administrators alone. good call ! :shysmile::shysmile::shysmile:
and what would all the foolls in ed admin administraste if akll the profs were terminated? do u think that the deans are actually competent enough to teach students? not!
Well, I don't know why students are not custiomers. I have been a customer in hi ed bsns for most of my life and I know that I would like to be a front-line customer rep who selld business and history diplomas to my education customers so that they might one day become front line education customer service reps like me too some day. WTF is wrong with this pic? They (or their daddi es, their trust funds, or their student bankers) are paying for the right to some day compte for my job. Why aren't they customers? And why aren't coplleges and universities education businesses? sOUNDS like someone doesn't know the business model of higher education?
They have become businesses and not just the for profits. I saw a program discussing the various sales points of colleges and universities. Those points had nothing to do with education and everything to do with amenities.
People who think that universities are not businesses ignore the reality that money changes hands between a producer and a consumer. There is nothing dirty about the word "business." Students are consumers. They are going out in search of an education. They expect a certain ROI for the investment of their time and money. Universities, trade schools, colleges and even private mentors provide that service for a fee. If I open a truck driving academy (for-profit) the goal at the end of the day is to turn a profit. I aim to earn that profit by providing education to people who wish to be educated. If I offer a high quality product, I will get more students. If I offer a crappy product (I train everyone on outdated technology, I overcharge, none of my students pass the CDL test etc) then my academy is likely to take on a crappy reputation and eventually I'll go out of business. Outside of the for-profit world, there are non-profit and public schools that have bad reputations as well. Marywood University suddenly had the programmatic accreditation for its nursing program yanked mid year (with no show cause). The students were upset. Wouldn't you be? You invested time and money in a program with the expectation of a specific return (eligibility to sit for a licensing exam and thus entry into the profession of nursing). Alternatively, we can pretend that education is so pearly white and pure that it is above the distasteful realities of the world (e.g. That you need money to pay for goods and services). Of course, the educational world would also need to divest itself from any money making operation (athletics, food service, dormitories, textbooks). But I suppose we could go for a college in the spirit of the Ancient Greeks with professors, and absolutely no support staff, gathering their students in the town squares and in fields and merely lecture and engage in some sort of Socratic discourse. I look forward to an educational institution putting its money (oops, sorry, there's that naughty word again) where its mouth is and making itself an entity driven SOLELY to educate without a single dollar changing hands.
I believe that students should get their money's worth, but I've seen the customer attitude lead to students seeking the wrong things. At the for-profit where I taught, students would complain about having to study criminology (they're in a criminal justice program for god's sake), not going on enough field trips (this isn't elementary school), and not being entertained. The only valid complaint they had about a few instructors is that they would sit at their desks and do nothing for most classes. Honestly, the instructors became demotivated because the director of education was always asking us to change something due to a student not liking something. We had students and administration who were completely clueless about the field trying to dictate what we taught. At my public university, students will complain about not getting extra credit assignments, not getting test reviews that are specific enough, and not getting multiple choice assessments in upper level classes. Some professors and adjunct instructors have lowered their standards in pursuit of good evaluations. What these students really want is the easiest and most entertaining path to a piece of paper, not an education.
And for-profit schools end up having to bend over backwards to accommodate these things. Because those students will plaster bad reviews all over yelp, google and ripoff report (something they likely wouldn't do for a mediocre community college program). And then when students don't have the required knowledge to enter their field (or they are lazy, or both) they start petitions to have their loans forgiven. After all, they fully expected that associates in criminal justice to get them a job at the FBI or that culinary school degree to result in them sipping champagne with Tom Colicchio and Anthony Bourdain. But can you believe the gall? They actually expect them to cook? And stand for hours at a time! Seriously though, I also agree that a student should get his/her money's worth. The problem is that students are not really in a position to objectively evaluate the quality of what they are receiving. My best friend from High School tells me that his program in business at College Misericordia (now Misericordia University) was "the best." He argues that Harvard Business has nothing on his podunk little university. Why does he like it so much? Because his professors were relaxed. He had one class where they basically read the WSJ during class time and then took an open book final exam. He had another professor who insisted on being called by first name and, despite the fact that he was supposed to be teaching them managerial accounting, actually taught the equivalent of small business administration (they wrote business plans for things like car detailing services, landscaping companies, web design firms etc.) He had a blast! Post-graduation he was rudely awakened to the fact that employers insisted on him doing things their way. He felt his education was so "solid" that any attempt to improve upon it would merely sully its perfection. When I go out seeking an education, I am presumably going to learn something I never learned before. I, at least in theory, want to challenge my brain to think in new ways about new and exciting concepts. To that end, I should recognize that while studying criminology out of a book might not be fun it is the sort of foundational knowledge I need to get into the field of criminal justice. Alternatively, I can look at my education as a thing to amuse me. Learn criminology? Nah, I'd rather you take me to the Sheriff's department and let me play with fingerprint ink.
I always thought that student-educator relationship was similar to patient-doctor relationships in many way. It is a business relationship. The student can get a second opinion (go to an other school/educator). The educator does know better most of the time. (Sadly, not so much lately.) The educator can refuse to change process, or do certain activities. No field trips, or balloon making clowns. The student can leave. The educator can refuse to service the student. Both are bound by a contract. I think it is a mistake that was taught in the 80s and 90s that "the customer is always right". They are not. I also think that educators, specially higher education have an "we know (everything) better", and "your plebeian rules do not apply to us" attitude. (go over to Chronicle forum...) When I spend thousands of dollars on a service, I expect the delivery of that service. It is a business - non-(declared) profit, or for-profit.
The author objects that faculty members would be fired based solely on student appraisals, and to that extent I completely agree. But that doesn't mean that students shouldn't be thought of as customers, and it certainly doesn't mean that higher education institutions can't be thought of as businesses. I think the problem here is that the author has a very unsophisticated concept of how business works. Yes, there are proprietary institutions in higher education that look to the long term stability that comes from maintaining a good reputation rather than the short term gains that would come from pleasing students regardless of the academic implications. But being able to write about that would require understanding of, for example, the different motivations that come from running a business that's privately held compared with one that is publicly traded. That understanding is not present in this article. But considering the source that's not surprising. Frankly, I don't think that people familiar with how business really works are the ones writing for Slate, which might explain why this article on the business of higher education was written by someone whose nebulous qualification to do so is a PhD in German.
All I have to say on this is that I work for both for-profits and not for-profits. The non-profits require me to bend over backwards as much, if not more, to keep students happy and make additional accommodations in hopes of retaining them in their programs.
I really can't say that I'm surprised. I mean, it's one of the reasons schools like Full Sail attract students. If I'm 18 years old and want to work in the movie biz, do I want to go to NYU and sit in a classroom or go to Florida and make a movie? That's a simplistic way of looking at it. And if I made that decision today there would be a lot more analysis involved. But at 18, I distinctly remembered the constant internal struggle between wanting an education (so I didn't have to work in a factory) and wanting to go out and actually DO something. It's part of what led me to work as a SAC while working on my degree in Psych. Had a school like Full Sail popped up and said "Hey! Neuhaus! You don't want to go to the University of Scranton and sit in a classroom all day! We have our own hospital and you'll learn by doing!" I would have been strongly tempted, to say the least.
Businesses are NOT Universities! For that reason, business owners should not train their employees in any way shape or form. No OJT, no workshops, no apprenticeships, no mentoring. That kind of learning and personal growth are entirely inappropriate for the business setting. Customers are NOT students! Therefore they should not have any of their questions answered, should not be allowed to use wifi as a guest and should never, ever be given a place to sit. Why would you ever need to sit in a business, anyway? It's not like they have any notes to take down.
You know, just the other day I asked the clerk at a running store to educate me on the different types of shoes and which was best for someone with a moderate pronation. I had no idea what a rude jerk I was being. After all, educate me? Did I think I had wandered into Princeton? You're right. From now on I'm only going to purchase thing at businesses. No being educated about their product or how it is used. No sitting. Do I want a free water while I browse? No thanks, commie. Everyone knows that Starbucks puts profits before coffee and the chairs there are merely a veiled attempt at making me "comfortable" so that I'll buy more of their stuff. From now on, I'm only buying coffee from a place that puts coffee BEFORE profit and I'm only sitting in places that don't have some sort of seating agenda.
