Are students customers? We’ve been debating this topic ever since I entered the profession of higher education some 35 years ago. As a faculty member, I steadfastly resisted this equation. But as soon as I entered into academic administration, I had to face it in new ways.
I had applied for a position as chief academic officer at a small, faith-based college. I was interviewing with the College Cabinet when the Chief Business Officer asked whether we should treat students as customers. Luckily, I had anticipated that question, and I replied, “No, I think we should treat students like students, since that’s what they are. We should concentrate on providing student services rather than customer service.” He objected strongly but professionally, both during the interview and in a brief conversation afterward.
I got the job, and that Chief Business Officer remained a good friend, even after his retirement. But I think back often to that exchange when I have faced the dilemma of balancing academic integrity and student satisfaction. A few faculty continue to insist that there’s nothing to balance: we should rigorously pursue the academic goals of our class, program, etc. And if that leaves students dissatisfied with their grade, then too bad; those students have misunderstood the essential nature of the academic enterprise. Most faculty today know it’s a bit more complicated and subtle than that. But we’re all aware that students and their parents are becoming ever-more consumer-oriented. And that orientation often interferes with how we’re trying to educate students. It’s nettlesome and maddening, and as professional educators we chafe against it.
The growing customerization of higher education is a pressure that faculty and administrators wrestle with every day. It represents a growing gap between the expectations of faculty, who have traditionally been the gatekeepers of the academic experience, and students, who along with their families are stuck with paying for that experience.
And several other questions are related to this main question, including:
- Is a higher education a consumer good? If so, what sort of consumer good is it? Or is it something else entirely?
- Is the higher education experience transactional? If so, what should that mean? What should students expect to receive for their money?
- Is the higher education experience contractual? What are we legally and/or morally obligated to provide once we accept a student’s tuition dollars?
Are students customers? Let’s role-play the yes and no responses to this question to understand each more fully.
Yes, Students Are Customers
First of all, let’s establish that “customer” is not a dirty word, either in higher education or in any other industry. A customer is simply someone who receives some product or service in consideration of compensation. Insofar as students provide compensation to IHEs in the form of tuition and fees, the services rendered on account of that compensation renders students as customers. Certainly the “deliverables” in this exchange reach far beyond merely the degree and encompass a whole range of developmental experiences. But students generally pay enormous sums for a college education and have a right to expect a meaningful experience in return.
But even when we disallow that this exchange alone renders students as customers, the mere fact that students expect this sort of exchange makes them customers, whether we want them to act like customers or not. Students shop around for the education that fits the best, and the fact that they exercise choice like any other consumer makes them customers. They have access to more information about various IHEs than ever before. The fact that they actively compare programs, campus amenities, faculty, and educational resources means that they will choose that institution that best fits their needs and desires.
Further, treating students as customers will improve the quality of the services we provide them as institutions of learning. Seeing them as customers doesn’t necessarily mean “the student [customer] is always right.” But it will mean that we will work hard to provide them with services in admissions, financial aid, housing, and academics without excessive bureaucratic runarounds.
Institutions are in competition with one another for students. If we value our mission as an institution, we will engage in practices that will keep us in business to fulfill that mission. And we won’t stay in business unless we compete strongly to recruit students and work hard to retain them once we’ve admitted them. Seeing students as our customers means we will pay close attention to their needs in a way that promotes their retention to graduation.
No, Students Are Not Customers
It’s obvious that the customer isn’t always right. But in mercantile business, we have to act as if the customer is always right and seek to satisfy the customer’s demands. Otherwise, we will simply lose that customer. But higher education cannot take place in an environment where we are always seeking to satisfy students’ demands. “Make your tests easier!” “Change my grade.” “Let me use ChatGPT to write my term paper.” These are clear student demands that can be addressed simply by changing our classroom standards. But making those changes deeply undermines the basic function of the academic enterprise: to facilitate students’ academic and personal growth through the application of rigorous learning standards.
Consequently, seeing students as our customers will turn our institutions into degree mills that offer academic credentials to those who have paid for them rather than to those who have earned them. Yes, colleges and universities are in tight competition for students, and our schools must have students to survive. But we must also have strong academic standards to fulfill our mission. Otherwise, we have no reason to survive.
Moreover, the focus on retention rates in the “customerization” of students focuses on deliverables like grades and degrees over the development of critical thinking skills and personal development. These latter goals require complex give and take between faculty and students that will sometimes requires students to face and overcome barriers.
Finally, this customerization will inevitably have a negative impact on those areas of the curriculum that lack immediate financial payback to graduates, even though those areas of study are critical for personal development and enhanced thinking skills. Academic areas in the arts and letters provide vital foundations for a meaningful life and skills for any meaningful career field. But treating students as customers will inevitably lead to students choosing majors simply on the basis of their future financial return. Lower enrollment in arts and letters programs could lead to the elimination of such programs, even though they have strong value on a less quantifiable basis.
Finding A Middle Ground
As is the case on so many issues like this, there is a broad middle ground that is often overlooked by those with a strong opinion on the subject. A middle position might be that although students are customers, they are a very special type of customer that requires a special type of handling.
A good analogy would be to see students as clients seeking guidance from a service agency. In this analogy, IHEs would be similar to agencies such as fitness gyms, counseling agencies, accountants, and attorneys. In relationships with these entities, clients pay for the services of a provider, but they are under no obligation to follow the guidance that provider gives. And if the client doesn’t follow the provider’s guidance, the provider is generally not liable for client harm that follows. Continuing the analogy, however, the provider is liable if it provides faulty advice to the client. So if a school promises you that you can graduate in four years, and you don’t, whose fault is that?
If colleges and universities are organizations that provide services to clients, can the clients ask “for their money back” if the promises of the institution don’t pan out? I’m not talking about promises such as financial aid awards that are contingent upon academic performance. Instead, I’m referring to employability promises or guaranteed graduation time frames. Some schools do provide limited guarantees of this sort.
The Four-Year Pathway Promise
One model in current use promises students a four-year pathway to graduation or else any further required semesters are free. Examples include the Four Year Guarantee at Elizabethtown College, the Finish in Four promise (offered at the University at Buffalo, Western Carolina University, and numerous other institutions), and the Gold Commitment at DePauw University. For schools with strong graduation metrics (graduation rates, employment post-graduation rates, etc.), these commitments are a good option. They signal to students that IHEs are committed to student success after they leave campus. And they will also nudge these institutions to make sure that students are getting the kinds of career and life coaching to ensure post-graduation success.
The Money Back Guarantee
Far fewer institutions offer an all-out “money back guarantee.” Those few that do limit the guarantee to certain high-demand programs such as nursing. And the “guarantees” come with a host of limitations and requirements. An example is Miami Dade College’s Money Back Guarantee. The fine print of the guarantee requires students to do everything possible to remain in good academic standing as well as to find meaningful employment by graduation. As attractive as this guarantee is to many students, the requirements simply constitute everything we would ordinarily expect a motivated college student to do to secure gainful employment upon graduation. So the guarantee is hardly iron-clad. Further, don’t expect schools to offer money back guarantees to students in arts and letters majors any time soon. Schools can afford to make these guarantees only when preparing students for the most in-demand careers.
Students as More than Customers
I suggest another middle ground between the absolute positions of Yes and No in the student-as-customer debate. I contend that the students in my classes are students along with everything that signifies. But they are not customers in terms of some of what that term signifies. I see myself as a mentor to my students, a term that is somewhat different from terms like coach or consultant. And it is certainly different from the term “vendor.” Yet this difference doesn’t mean that we should treat students as less than customers. Instead, it means that we should treat them as more than customers.
When students seek help on their finances from the financial aid office or when they seek help from the campus counseling center, they deserve to be treated promptly and professionally. But the reason they deserve this treatment is not that they are customers who might take their business elsewhere if they aren’t treated well. Instead, they deserve this good treatment because they are persons made in the image of God who are worthy of dignity and respect. Likewise, I don’t work hard preparing for my classes or stay up late to get student assignments graded on time because I’m afraid my students will take their business elsewhere if I don’t. Instead, I do these things because I value my students as people made in God’s image, and I would expect them to do the same in return if our positions were reversed.
This position works well only when we have an established relationship with the student. In the case of prospective students, the institution really has no choice but to consider prospective students to be customers, because that’s what they in fact are, particularly in the earliest stages of the recruitment process. Prospective students generally begin as shoppers. They shop when they visit our website, when they review our recruitment materials, and even during a first visit to campus And if they don’t like what we have to offer then they’ll shop somewhere else.
But later in the recruitment process, and certainly once students enroll, the relationship deepens, and the arrangement changes significantly. There is a sense in which students must place themselves under the mentorship of faculty and by extension the school as a whole. Otherwise, the kinds of personal transformation our mission statements claim we are pursuing can never take place.
Historically, parents, students, and institutions have understood this relational change. The fact that this change is no longer recognized in some quarters doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing the change. In some cases the change needs to be reiterated. In other cases it needs to be adjusted to find a middle ground between the expectations of consumer-minded students and the expectations of performance-minded faculty. But long as we treat our students as divine image-bearers and not as profit centers, we will do a fine job in recruiting, educating, retaining, and graduating them. This is the kind of relationship that strong teaching should always cultivate. And it is this kind of relationship that institutions should work hard to nurture in all of their student interactions, both inside and outside of the classroom.
The Connotations of “Customer”
There is one additional observation to be made here. The connotations of the word “customer” are related to the expectations of modern culture. Those connotations are in constant flux. Once again, “customer” isn’t a dirty word. But its typical use in the world of commerce is only partially applicable to the context of a college or university. There is a degree of disconnect, as I have shown. So we should be careful lest we connote the more extreme meanings of “customer” when we apply it to students.
For example, car salespersons have customers that they want to help, and con artists have “marks” that they target for exploitation. If I charge you for a product or service without any intention of providing it, I haven’t helped you. Instead, I’ve made you into my “mark.” Nevertheless, you were also my customer in that I convinced you that we were in a buyer-seller relationship. Sometimes, vendors cheat customers. If car salespersons were to refer to their customers as marks, that would do nothing for their sales numbers. And it would certainly undermine any hope of establishing a meaningful relationship with their customers. Likewise, we should be wary of referring to students using a term that implies even the possibility of exploitation.
Calling students “customers” doesn’t mean we’re out to exploit or deceive them. Nevertheless, until the connotation of “customer” evolves somewhat, it will always carry with it the negative connotations some associate with that word.
Conclusion
Let’s be careful what we call those who enroll in our institutions of learning. Calling enrollees students rather than customers doesn’t mean students’ wants and needs don’t matter. It doesn’t mean we are less committed to serving them than if they were buying a widget from us. Instead, it means we are committed to sacrificing our time and efforts for their personal development. And we can’t put a price on that–even after we’ve put a price on tuition, and no matter what we choose to call our enrollees. Students should be more than customers, but never less.