Students as Customers or Products: Perceptions and Preferences of Faculty and Students

Should students be treated as customers or as products? A survey of faculty and students showed that faculty generally prefer the product orientation and students generally prefer the customer orientation, but both believe the other orientation prevails. Significant differences were evident across disciplines; in Business and Arts & Sciences, students felt they got more product orientation and less customer orientation than they wanted. In Engineering and Law, students wanted less customer orientation and were generally satisfied with what they got. In a European university, students perceived less congruence between their preference for customer orientation and a prevailing product orientation than was true for a U. S. state university or a U. S. private university.