The student as customer

Wanted to buy: One outstanding education at a top university with quality faculty, well-stocked library, the classes I want (when I want them), an admissions and registration process that is less complicated than an IRS audit; and a wide selection of student services.

That's apt to be the shopping list that many students have stuffed in their backpacks. Increasingly they are saying that they are our customers and should be treated with all the courtesy due customers. And students aren't the only ones singing the refrain; I'm hearing it from parents, business leaders and government officials. Some even urge students and their families to choose an institution much as they would a new car. Compare prices. Kick the tires. Test drive several campuses.

But as the student-as-customer chorus swells, I must insist: It isn't necessarily so. True, there are some comparisons to be made. The best universities are striving hard to meet student demands and expectations: Facilities are continually being upgraded; technology is on the cutting edge; procedures such as admissions and class registration are being streamlined; housing and food services are being updated, and staff and faculty are being encouraged to explore the needs of their students and to provide the kind of educational experience that those students want and deserve.

But -- and this is a big but -- just when our student is about to settle into the cozy role of campus customer, it's time for a reality check.

The customer may be king or queen in the commercial world, but in a university setting, the customer is also the heavy lifter in the learning process.When a student purchases educational services from an institution of higher learning, what that student is really buying is the opportunity to learn. These institutions open doors, but students must walk through them under their own power.

Learning, though invigorating, stimulating and sometimes positively thrilling, is hard work. Top-notch faculty members make it more exciting, but in the end, it is the student who is most critical to the learning process. Rarely, if ever, does the "customer" so clearly determine whether a service has been successfully delivered.

And there is another critical difference between being a consumer on campus and off. In a market, you fill your shopping basket as you wish. If all you want is milk and Twinkies, no one is going to force you to take broccoli and tomato juice.

However, when a full-time student pays tuition, he or she purchases all the services that the university provides for undergraduates, even if a student chooses to ignore them. Tuition covers the use of the library and meetings with academic advisers, even if the student rarely steps foot inside the library and never darkens an adviser's door. What's more, undergraduate tuition in part supports the scholarly and research activity of the faculty. Great teaching depends on great research and without it, faculty members would not be able to communicate the newest discoveries, nor the excitement that surrounds them.

Are students customers? In those immortal words of the great sages, yes and no. "Yes," universities must develop user-friendly approaches and attitudes that serve students. But the learning process demands active participation by students, and no amount of tuition relieves students from that obligation and hard work.

Myles Brand welcomes your E-mail at pres@indiana.edu.

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