<p>I've seen a lot of anonymous rants from professors about how students more and more are coming to believe that they are the "customer," the professor is the "server" and demanding that their requests (higher grads, extensions, etc.) be met and accomodated, due in some part to the high tuition costs ("I/my parents didn't pay $50,000 for me to get a D!"). In turn, students give poor evaluations, which are weighted heavily in tenure, forcing professors to lower standards. While I doubt it happens with as much frequency as they say, I had have at least one professor who was really annoyed by the seemingly glacial pace of one of her lower division classes, though she loved our senior/grad student level class. I guess I can see both sides of the agrument here: On one hand, professors should be responsive to students, who ARE paying for their education (or funding it through scholarships, parents, etc)... but these students are paying for an EDUCATION, and their grades and coursework should indicate something about their skills, so I really don't know...</p>
<p>Interesting point. As a parent caught in the middle - EFC too high to qualify for aid, income too low to make tuition payments comfortably - I have to confess some truth to this. I can say that my radar will be higher regarding the "services" the school provides. </p>
<p>For example, there is another thread started by a parent who is angry that her D was assigned a triple in a room designed to be a double - because the school overadmitted and they don't have enough rooms. Her quite understandable perspective is, for $50,000, why should her D's experience suffer because the school made a mistake? </p>
<p>By the same token, however, I think this also creates more pressure on the students. When I was in college, much of the silliness and misbehaving (read: heavy drinking) was considered normal, part of the experience. Today, though, I would be furious if my kid were frittering away my hard-earned tuition money sleeping in, skipping class and considering Wednesday night the start of the weekend.</p>
<p>I see both sides too. I am (was) positively a prospective customer, and a college sells a service. I see that service as an opportunity for education to further prepare a student for happiness and fulfillment in his chosen career. Not all lessons are learned in the classroom. I absolutely do not believe that if student selects a school he(or ol' Dad) are buying any certain grade. We are only buying the opportunity for an education. College should provide tutor services or other services help to help student earn a better grade.
Similarly, some will dine out at a fast food drive-thru window, some eat in the fast food establishment, others may choose a family restaurant, still others may choose what one thinks of as "fine dining". Many degrees of "experiences" at each level, yet all can achieve the objective of satisfying the hunger. But each person must choose for himself how much money is available to him, and how valuable is the ambiance that accompanies each level of "stepping up".</p>
<p>I haven't seen this in what my son tells me about his engineering courses. Lots of kids flunk out or withdraw in the first semester and second semester.</p>
<p>I don't think the "student as customer" attitude is a function of the high cost of education. Consumerism is rampant in every field, including health care, for example, or in k-12 education in public schools. And it's not just about grades and what students learn or do not learn. Profs are supposed to be entertaining and make learning painless. Maybe blame it on Sesame Street?:)</p>
<p>And the colleges did this to themselves. A correlative factor was when academia started up the lifelong learner marketing. At that point, the concept that student's were (by implication) a form of lasting customer, with the attendant reciprocal concept that they perceived themselves as such. </p>
<p>Other factors are involved including the major changes in collegiate funding which began back in the last centuries quarter. Colleges are obviously institutional but quickly enough they became corporate in attitude which played into the conceptual arena of students as customers. </p>
<p>And these attitudes do tend to denigrate academic credibility. Student's perceive academia as equivalent to mass media entertainment-a passive experience in which it all is delivered to, rather than engaged with...
But the point which academia considered students clients also caused trouble.
Customers don't have to be sold a first rate product, all that need happen is to sell the perception they are getting one. By that all academia needs to do is provide the educational equivalent of hummer bling and it's all ok. </p>
<p>So yes although the elites may market their persona as academic excellence it may not be all the price tag betokens. And when state schools are assessed in the light of 6% yearly tuition raises, god goods no. </p>
<p>And individual professors are under some pressure in this new paradigm. Academic standards which are actually high, do tend to cut the enrollment. And especially at the state schools numbers are paramount, it doesn't matter how many finish its how many show on the tuition roles past the add drop tuition cut off dates.
Under that situation a prof who pushes the standards too far, will find a lot of under the table pressure to cease that type of thing, its bad for business. </p>
<p>And as Marite notes the consumerist attitudes are rife in our society. One of the ironies about it all is that the schools pushing service learning strategies the hardest are often those charging the highest tuitions. They know they have created a problem, but one they aren't quite sure of how to resolve. </p>
<p>And as far as student evaluations, yes these can be a form of retaliation. And within academia the equivalent retaliations are the rants of how today's students are illiterate, lazy, entitled and intellectually vacuous. A perception which does tend to affect grades.
What we have here is the resentment under the glitz, which is a under acknowledged component of the American consumer economy. Can't have noblesse oblige or respectful deference if both sides know its all becoming a vinyl veneer for which they paid too much.</p>
<p>My kid went to private school for 13 years. The tuition is almost the same as college tuition. From time to time there were parents that would want special treatment or complain about certain teacher. The school's attitude has always been - if you are not happy, this may not be the right school for your child (and we could fill our class three times over with kids on the waitlist). Of course, if someone is a huge donor to the school, I am sure their kid may be given some special consideration. My kid's school has always taken hard stand against over bearing parents. </p>
<p>No, I don't think those elite schools will compromise quality of their schools because of over bearing "customers." They don't have to - they could fill their schools 10 times over with rejected and waitlisted kids.</p>
<p>Here's a different outlook: a moment that completely turned me against one of my professors was when she complained that "for what you [the students] pay to come here, you'd think they could keep dry erase markers in the rooms."</p>
<p>I didn't need to be reminded how much I pay (admittedly, I'm on an almost luxurious fin. aid package), but I felt that that was nearly the pinnacle of a lack of professionalism- for one thing, if we pay enough for that, then we certainly pay enough to not have our Professors complain to us.</p>
<p>Wow, one remark in frustration completely turned you against your professor? That's harsh. On the original question, my D is just starting at a very expensive college, so I am reserving judgment as I have no specific experience yet</p>
<p>Here are my thoughts, as a professor. I think there has been a movement toward the 'customer' model in education, but more as a general tendency in all fields rather than just cost per se (as someone noted above).</p>
<p>I DO think students have a right to good service, especially for the price tag. Such service at the university level especially, such as the quality of dorms, or well organized administration, selection of classes or class size. With regards to the professor, such service would include returning work and grading on time, making grading criteria clear, providing quality feedback, being available to discuss concerns with students and provide extra assistance. There are some seriously bad and lazy profs out there (like every profession), and I would be very upset if my D had to put up with it. </p>
<p>Where I do not think the customer model fits so well, and where students get confused, is in the form of judgment about what is taught and how its taught. While feedback from students is useful in the aggregate (we professors do learn from the feedback each year), this is not a restaurant or garage. In other words, the better term is "client model" not "customer model" as we should (hopefully!) be assuming our professors know more about the subject matter and pedagogy than students. </p>
<p>I do not think the customer model affects standards or grading. I do think there is grade inflation over time and the dumbing down of classes in many places, but its due to a host of other factors (belonging in a thread of its own). </p>
<p>I have taught at many kinds of universities and I and my colleagues have never felt pressure to change grading or classroom standards. At all the schools I have taught at, student ratings do matter in evaluation of professors and tenure and promotion (I head such a committee), but a small amount compared to ones research record. At least at research oriented universities, to which I'm most familiar, they are not at al 'weighted heavily". The reason being perhaps most of us recognize the current measures are mostly tapping into likability and popularity and a host of other errors, and I have yet to see a decent measure capturing how much a student <em>learns</em> in the classroom with a given professor (which should be the real test!). I think it is unfortunate if students are led to believe they have that kind of influence when they do not.</p>
<p>Profs complaining about student's, their jobs, the suits in administration...well they are somewhat human. A few letters after ones name doesn't change human flaws all that much. Plus given the occasional reciprocal idiocy of both profs and students a few complaints should be borne in stride. </p>
<p>Also the complaining prof syndrome is a little lingering aspect of 60's politics. In various forms of neo-Marxism there was a tendency to enoble victim status. Which presented a problem for left leaning profs, they were (and are) part of the established hierarchy and as such are of somewhat higher station. But that's not compatible to a conceptual framework in which victimization equals status. So we do get the institutional situation of privileged people basing part of their persona credibility on the necessity of perceiving themselves as oppressed. </p>
<p>There was something to be said for the older type of frayed genteel tweed jacket profs...they considered their life as academics (the old life of the mind litany) as a form of privilege. And so may have genuinely been more interested in student welfare, even if that arose from a slightly condescending noblesse oblige. </p>
<p>Concerning high tuition schools and selective admissions. Yes they may have people lined up to get in, but that doesn't necessarily equate to a higher model of education. </p>
<p>For example the goings on at Yale art school don't indicate all that much educational quality. Ms. Oseberg played them quite well, and her admission in itself indicates that they're not all that elite no matter what the outrageous tuition might indicate.</p>
<p>"Where I do not think the customer model fits so well, and where students get confused, is in the form of judgment about what is taught and how its taught. While feedback from students is useful in the aggregate (we professors do learn from the feedback each year), this is not a restaurant or garage. In other words, the better term is "client model" not "customer model" as we should (hopefully!) be assuming our professors know more about the subject matter and pedagogy than students."</p>
<p>Starbright that was nicely phrased and does show the weaknesses of the student as customer situation...</p>