The "Measurement in Education" thread is forming a skein around the idea
of students as customers. I wholly agree with this perspective, but I'd
like to offer something that might cut through to the heart of what they
are buying.
In response to Mariann Jelinek's comment, "Students ARE 'customers'",
Bernard Girard writes:
>I am sure this sentence looks obvious to a lot of people.... But is it true?
>Can we say that students buy knowledge the way one buys a car or a record? Can
>we even say that knowledge can be sold? As everyone knows knowledge is free,
>it's not a property, you cannot protect it.
I suggest that what students are buying is the *opportunity* to learn,
rather than knowledge itself. Academia is nothing other than a complex
system of learning opportunities, replete with many ways of both limiting
access to it and providing entry. Tuition is essentially an entry fee
that brings with it no guarantee of results, just as paying a doctor to
diagnose and treat an illness does not guarantee a cure.
One could carry the idea into broad economic terms and characterize
admissions criteria as means of controlling the demand, while the faculty
governance system (with its emphasis on credentialization) controls the
supply. This would oversimplify the system, but might be a useful model
for discussing higher education in terms of the customer concept.
-- David E. Birren Phone: (608)267-2442 Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources Fax: (608)267-3579 Bureau of Management & Budget Internet: birred@dnr.state.wi.us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "To know, and not to act, is to not know." --Wang Yang Ming, 9th-century Chinese general