I went to a small private college in the southern USA. I thoroughly enjoyed my education, and met some great people along the way. However, I believe that the meaning of college has been lost over time. I believe that the perception has switched from a service industry to a product industry. In this post, I seek to explain my standing on this, and how defining your business offers is vital to success.
In my experiences at college, common statements were along the lines of: "I'm paying the prof's salary. Why can't they bump my grade?" or "Can't they just slide me through? I'm a senior. I don't need this stress." or "I've already paid them, can't they just give me my degree?" Statements like these prove that today's students view university as a product business. The belief is that since tuition has been paid, I must therefore get my degree. In this mindset, it does not matter what the usage of classes were, but simply that because it was bought, it must be received. I believe that this mindset is detrimental, as it is removing the key pillar for what colleges and universities are designed to do: prove educational mettle.
This is why I believe that in going to college/university, you are paying for a service, not a product. I think that tuition pays for the service of lectures, access to trained educational professionals, and access to world-class medium (such as libraries, computer programs, etc.). I believe that by proving yourself to educational professionals, you will then receive a degree. In essence, I am arguing that the degree is a secondary, albeit critical, product of the services provided by the educational institution. The reason I argue this is that there are over 5,300 colleges or universities in the USA alone. One could go to any of these and get the same letters after their name, and that would be it.
Overall, I believe that it is of utmost importance that colleges and universities don't cheapen their standards in order to hand out degrees like hotcakes. Instead, they must emphasize their importance as service providers. In doing so, I hope that students can understand the importance of the degree as a way to prove that they have the educational mettle, rather than the fact that they have found a way to pay for a product that shows mental capability.
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