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This house supports universities treating students as customers

Debate Information

This house supports  universities treating students as customers (eg by allocating significant resources to improving students lifestyles, and granting students influence over university decisions and the content and delivery of course curricula) 

Here are relevant articles that can be resources for this motion:
1) Are They Students? Or 'Customers'? - The New York Times
Jan 3, 2010 · David Bejou, the dean of the School of Business and Economics at the Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, is the author of “Treating Students like Customers,” published in BizEd, ...
https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/are-they-students-or-customers/

2)

Jul 27, 2016 · Mark Farrell (MF): Yes, today's students think and behave more like customers than traditional students. Universities compete with each other for students. They employ sophisticated marketing  ...

3) 
The Guardian › education › mar › studen...

Mar 31, 2015 · It is strange for universities to treat learners as customers at a time when businesses are trying to treat customers as learners.

4) 

Apr 28, 2015 · Demand for counselling services in Amercian universities has increased, as has the complexity of the problems that students present. Photograph: Alamy. “Who are your customers, and ...

5) 

Mar 14, 2011 · Lord Browne thinks the idea of student as consumer should drive higher education, but Paul ... changed – universities find themselves dealing with many more complaints from students.


Lets debate this British Parlimentary Debate motion. I will take pro position - arguing that students should be treated more like customers.



ale5
  1. Live Poll

    This house supports universities treating students as customers

    4 votes
    1. Pro
      50.00%
    2. Con
      50.00%
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  • agsragsr 881 Pts   -  
    Students should absolutely be treated like customers.  University is providing a service, and students are paying large sums of money and their time.  Part of the service that University provides should include a changing environment that fosters professional and personal development.  Students expect immersive educational experience that maximizes their chances of subsequent career prospects.  Students also expect an active engagement with an alumni and student body, that will offer valuable networking opportunities.
    If Universities dont take the mindset of students being customers then longer term their student base would vanish.
     Now, it doesn't mean that University needs to take it easy in students just because customer is always right.  The service is valuable education - and that comes with hard work.
    Live Long and Prosper
  • WhyTrumpWhyTrump 234 Pts   -  
    Hmm, if students are treated as customers as in traditional business relationship then Universities will want to monetize all aspects of those relationships, including selling student data to third parties and upselling students for more add-on classes or experiences.  The role of professors and guidance counselors would evolve as account managers, as they will have to be accountable for revenue targets.  Assuming that professors wouldn't get revenue targets then who sould be accountable for maximizing revenue per student?
    ale5
    WhyTrump - a good question
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5966 Pts   -  
    Private universities are private enterprises by definition, so the students, indeed, are nothing other than customers to them. Students pay for services and receive them as a result of a voluntary mutually signed contract. And, of course, all private companies want to please the customers, so they keep coming back for more services and recommend the company to their friends and acquaintances.

    However, here lays the catch: it is not enough for the company to please the customer instantaneously. It is more important to provide a long-term satisfaction. As such, universities really want their students to succeed in real life, so they remain thankful for the services they received. Making courses easier and handing out high grades left and right may make the students happy throughout their studies, but make their lives much harder upon graduation - and "I have wasted my money on useless classes" is the last thing a private university wants to see written in an online review section.

    As such, treating students as customers does not make universities any more inclined to go easy on them, to simplify the programs, or to reduce the quality standards. It simply means that the university wants the students to be happy with the skills they acquire throughout the program and uses revenue as the primary incentive.

    ---

    With public universities, it is a bit more complicated. Public universities do not pursue any commercial interest, and treating the students as customers goes against the reasoning behind the whole taxation system: invest in the government and receive services in return. The investment has already happened, from all the potential customers, hence the university has to have other incentives than profit in order to want to provide high quality education. This, in my opinion, is the biggest disadvantage of public education, and the primary reason of why it tends to lag in quality far behind private education: public education facilities are more interested in minimizing the amount of expenses towards education, not in maximizing the outcome of that education, hence they tend to be technologically and morally outdated, they tend to hire lower quality teachers and professors, and they tend to provide only the most basic necessities for students, so as to save more resources.
  • someone234someone234 647 Pts   -   edited June 2018
    Totally disagree to this but I'm a socialist at heart so I'm not sure if it's raw bias.
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