UNC Students Are People Not Commodities

Have you heard people talking about students as “customers?”

I work at UNC and I’m hearing it a lot these days.

Calling students “customers” is a way of representing students as commodities.

In this way of thinking – common to people who call themselves higher ed “reformers” – students are not seen as full human beings who possess intellectual curiosity and a right to an education.

Instead, these so-called ‘reformers’ see each student as a commodity.

There’s money to be made as discrete units of knowledge – also commodified – are delivered to the student. A student who graduates from UNC Chapel Hill, for example, is a fully formed commodity whose future earnings will inform decisions about which programs of study are viable and which programs are no longer useful.

It doesn’t stop there, however. There’s money to be made after graduation too! Many “customers” have student debt. Whether the economy is strong, or weak, this massive debt means massive opportunity for private profit. The ‘reformers’ are manipulating tuition costs, narrowing curricula, tweaking policies, closing research centers, and cashing in big time.