Schools with bad customer service.....

So, whenever I see a thread about customer service at schools it always begs me to ask this question:

Are students of a school customers or products? Is a school really a provider of services or is it a facilitator of education? The argument can go both ways but I've always found that the customer approach tends to go hand in hand with the educational quality argument.

Thoughts?

 

Public, Private Not-For-Profit, and Private For-Profit

In higher education, bad customer service does not amount to low quality education or bad program. Fort Hayes and Thomas Edison are public colleges. Wilmington University is a private not-for-profit college. Capella and NCU are private for-profit colleges. Whereas public and private not-for-profit colleges tend to have not-so-nice customer service, private for-profit colleges often have very good customer service because they treat students as customers. It is therefore not surprising that for-profit colleges have better customer service than public colleges and private not-for-profit colleges.

If you want a good education, you have to keep calling. I am sure that they will either answer your call or return your call. Good things are not easy to get. If I were you, I will persevere and keep trying.

 

When you say, "If you want a good education, you have to keep calling." do you mean that the ones that do call you back (for-profits) provide a lower quality education? UWF is a public school and their customer service is awesome, so is COSC as a matter of fact. Both are public schools. NCU is a for-profit and their customer service sucks. It used to be great but something happened and I might have just never noticed. From my personal experience, I can not say I agree with your comment.

 

Most (and probably all) the colleges that provide the best education in the United States and other countries are public and not-for-profit colleges. However, there are many public colleges and not-for-profit colleges that are absolutely not in that league.

I am very familiar with Wilmington University. It is a good school. The university is located about two miles from Newcastle Airport in Delaware. Whereas I cannot say for sure that all for-profit colleges have high quality programs, I can avow with certainty that Wilmington University is a better choice than many for-profit colleges. Perhaps, it is not better than all for-profit colleges but it is better than most of them.

I agree that there are some public schools that have good student/admission service. A not-for-profit school that doesn't have a good customer service may be surviving for now but it is certainly heading south.