Students As Consumers

We have lately discovered that the students want to be consumers, or so it seems. In Britain, where the Government is trying to put the students at the heart of the system by raising, in some cases three-fold, the fees they pay for higher education, the pitch is rather acute. Everyone concerned, including the universities, seem to believe that by this strange play of fate, where the students have to assume the loans for their own education, they have suddenly become consumers, turning rather passive - as the consumers do - and disengaged, and expecting the education services to be delivered to them. The manifestation of this belief is everywhere, from what the government counts as the most important aspects of education (contact time, graduate employment rate etc), to what the bureaucrats mandate as the measures of quality (adequate and accurate information, communicating what is to be delivered and ensuring the delivery of what is expected), and to what the institutions themselves believe are important, like student experience, which is rather nebulously defined to include whatever goes on in the campus, including the food in student cafeteria.

This idea is so widespread that it is difficult to challenge it. In fact, I rather uncritically accepted it at first, and wanted to do a research on how this will change the practises of university teaching. However, the question that stopped me was consumers as opposed to what: I did not have a clear answer. An easy way to theorise was after Zygmunt Bauman, who wrote about society of consumers as opposed to the society of producers, the idea of instant gratification against deferment of enjoyment. However, while the idea may ring true in the context of wider society, the whole concept of studentship - going to college rather than doing something more enjoyable - may be all about deferment of enjoyment. While some theoreticians of Higher Education may see the tyranny of 'learning objectives' as proof that the education has become a commodity, students have done nothing to initiate the transformation. Seen this way, they are at the receiving end and are being repositioned as consumers, and as I would claim, the idea of studentship is being changed by the institutions that define them.

The students want the degree and a good job in the end. May be. But that does not make them consumers. That makes them, well, students. The students of all ages would have done that: Just that the people who went to the university before the age of mass Higher Education did not need a job in the same way or form today's students do. They went on to run their family businesses: Their families, which paid for the education in most cases, want the candidate to be appropriately educated. If that did not make them consumers, today's students can not be denigrated as consumers by the same token.

It is rather the transformation at the institution end which is significant. While the students may follow a similar life - may be they party less at this time of austerity and worry more in this era of joblessness - a consumer identity is being imposed upon them. They are supposed to receive, not demand. They would be given the information, and if a job waits for them in the end, they should consider themselves lucky. The education is all about experience - they are being told - than about transformation: So brace yourself for a ride as if you are in a theme park. Rather like womanhood which has been repositioned to be synonymous with the shape of the body, studentship is defined not by its inherent possibilities but by its limits.

Everyone indeed should be happy with this: Repositioning students as consumers is one thing the incumbent state could do to ensure social sterilisation at the time when prisons are full and there are no jobs in the military. Today's bureaucratic universities, endowed with good money and good sense by those who run the state, would much rather be the reproductive organ for workers and service providers for consumers, rather than becoming the hotbeds of personal transformation and other dangerous business. The students, just as the working classes have been sold a dream of home ownership and spend their lives toiling to pay for it, are expected to fall in, not least because of the debt they must assume for the privilege of the servitude.

However, the redeeming thing is that they remain - yes - students. They still study and discover. The student work becomes a form of knowledge, as Basil Bernstein discovered with such clarity. As Theodore Zeldin would remark - they changed the subject. They participate through a conscious subversion, just by being themselves, keeping their dreams alive, just by the simple acts of reading, talking, writing or in some cases, by dropping out. They remain in control, as students in other ages also did, they shape their own experiences. From close quarters, one action at a time, they make the hegemonic discussion about student consumerism meaningless.

A Note on Independent Colleges in Britain

In a sense, the independent higher education sector in Britain is incapable of thinking. Having spent some time in the sector, talking to and pleading with various entrepreneurs, I have come to the sad conclusion that this very entrepreneurial sector may be too opportunistic. I have no issues with opportunism, and understand that this is a necessary trait for entrepreneurs: But, there are times, and we are at such a juncture right now, when strategic thinking and that 'vision' thing is somewhat needed. Plain opportunism, at times like this, creates a sort of thought paralysis.

To be fair, most of the colleges in the sector are owned and run by owner-operators. Professional management is quite rare, and the businesses are quite small compared to their impact. This is the key reason why the capacity to think big and bold is rare, and strategy mostly means tinkering around the edges rather than any meaningful approach to the future. However, at this juncture, strategy is no longer one more thing to think of - as most college leaders treat it to be - but quite the key to continued survival of the sector. 

This is primarily because of the visa rule changes, which has made Britain a less attractive destination, and the burden of these changes has fallen disproportionately on the independent colleges. Students studying in these colleges can not work, can not bring their dependents, can not have an internship, can only do certain types of courses, must have an almost endless flow of money available to them at all time and finally will have no rights to settle, or even stay for while after their studies, in Britain. The policy-makers fundamentally altered the landscape to reallocate a space to Independent colleges they were so far unaccustomed with, that of the service of rich and the famous, may be assisted by oil wealth: This was the territory of elite British universities so far, and will indeed remain so. The traditional territory for Independent colleges - the middle class middle ability international students who can't afford to get into British universities initially but were pulled no less by the aspiration - was wiped off by these changes. The enrolment figures, thereafter, have dropped by at least 60% in almost all colleges, and while various improvised arrangements are being made by different institutions, students remain highly sceptical and no discernible lift-off has happened anywhere so far.

The response in the independent sector has primarily been two-pronged. First, there is a scramble for what the UK Border Agency calls 'Highly Trusted Sponsor' status, a sort of arrangement where the college demonstrates the robustness and sustainability of their processes, and the UK Border Agency, once satisfied, grants them a little relaxation on what they can or can not do. This still does not earn its students work rights or any comparable privileges as in a public institution, but it lets them continue to recruit students internationally. However, since every college has to be Highly Trusted Sponsor to continue, this much coveted status has now become like having electricity: You need to have it, but if you have it, it does not create a competitive advantage. 

The other response was to pursue the 'Home' students. There is an assumption that there are lots of British students who are not finding an university to go to, and independent colleges can service this excess demand. This is a valid strategy, as the independent sector often works as demand-absorbent in other countries. However, in Britain, the excess demand is lower than one would imagine, and even the demographic bulge that is creating it now will level off in 2015. Indeed, the independent colleges can service emergent areas of demand, or specialised fields, but their efforts to recruit the usual business studies students have so far gone nowhere. This problem was further accentuated by the fact that most independent colleges were heavily focused, at least so far, on postgraduate programmes, which are popular among international students: This did not translate at all into 'home' student market. 

At this time, sobriety is returning to the sector as the effects of the visa changes start settling in. Many colleges are closing shop, unfortunately leaving their students disenfranchised, but at the same time, there is a growing consensus in favour of self-regulation and creation of safeguards for the students, and a reinvention of the products and ways of doing business. In the new climate, innovation is the key. While many independent colleges I know of are prepared to sit out this year with the hope that normalcy will return in 2013, they can not afford to sit still. The idea of a college is changing: Interrogating what an independent college stands for and providing a clear answer may be the way to start for independent colleges. They have to innovate their way out of trouble and reinvent the business altogether.