The student-as-customer model used at Canadian universities must be discarded, writes John Walsh (University of Guelph). Walsh outlines the issues with this model, such as its costliness, inefficiencies, and its tendency to invite “a consumer culture into a sector that cannot tolerate it.” He proposes a reframing that treats parents and governments as investors and targets society—not students—as the true customer of higher ed that is looking to “purchase” graduates with skills, citizenship, and economic contributions. “We owe it to students, taxpayers, employers and society to restore rigour to undergraduate education,” he concludes. “This means aligning public funding with long-term returns, and abandoning a model that treats universities like retail vendors and students like discretionary spenders.”
