Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 10 | October 2018 | Seite 16

policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
The customer is always right
Why students should be
treated as paying customers.
By Alan Manly
D
eclaring that higher education is
a commodity and students are
customers is no way to win friends
in the education sector. But it is a debate
worth having – and one that is regularly
fuelled by none other than the Australian
Government Department of Education and
Training with their annual Student Experience
Survey. In any other sector, we may well call
this a customer satisfaction survey.
In Australia, there are 168 institutions
registered to grant degrees. The list is
made up of 43 universities and 125 higher
education providers, also known as
independent higher education providers
(iHEPs). The universities are predominantly
government owned while the iHEPs
are mostly privately owned. So how do
students – or shall we say customers – rate
the various institutions?
In 2017, the majority of undergraduate
students were satisfied with their overall
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educational experience, with 79 per cent
rating theirs as positive. This was much the
same as the 2016 survey, which reported
80 per cent satisfaction. The results remain
largely consistent year to year, and each
time they are released, spokespeople for
universities and other institutions are quick
to claim credit.
Top performers are celebrated, while
below-average performers are named
and shamed.
In 2016, the Universities of NSW, Sydney,
Western Australia, Adelaide, Melbourne and
the Australian National University all scored
below the national average.
Of the nation’s public universities,
Edith Cowan University received the top
satisfaction rating of 86 per cent, while the
University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
scored the lowest: 72 per cent.
The private universities, however,
significantly outperformed the public, with
the University of Notre Dame and Bond
University both recording more than 90 per
cent student satisfaction.
Speaking on behalf of the wooden
spoon winner UTS, senior deputy vice-
chancellor Andrew Parfitt said it had been
a challenging year for the university’s
students and staff.
Parfitt’s comment perpetuates a
commonly held view among public
institutions that see students not as
individuals, or even a group of individuals,
but as one collective entity who will
simply accept the level of service offered
to them. There is no suggestion here that
students could be customers paying for
an education – and no acknowledgement
that those customers might have been let
down by the service they received.
The reality is that even those in the
public system are paying customers. They
may receive a government subsidy or loan,
and they may not have to pay upfront,
but at some point, their degree is going to
cost them cold, hard cash. So why should
they languish while students of private
universities demand, and receive, a better
experience for their money?
The Council of Private Higher
Education attests that when it comes to
student satisfaction, its members are well
above the average.
“Student rankings show independent
providers leading the way in all quality
categories of the undergraduate Student
Experience Survey,” says CEO Simon Finn.
“Students enrolled with an independent
provider study in courses that, with a
few exceptions, do not receive any
Commonwealth funding. These students
who pay the full cost of their courses
are acutely aware of the quality of the
education they expect to receive.”
So, it seems students who pay more for
education value the product more. Put
another way, customers who pay the full
cost for a service demand and seemingly
get better service than customers
of government owned and operated
organisations. So how do Australian
universities compare to those overseas?
According to Best Colleges, the top 10
private universities in the United States
recorded an average satisfaction rate of 77
per cent, while the average for the top 10
public universities was 65.7 per cent. The
data is unequivocal. Both in Australia and
internationally, levels of student satisfaction
are higher in private institutions than
government or publicly owned equivalents.
To ensure all students have a positive
higher education experience, institutions
would do well to start treating them as
paying customers. Until they do, the
debate will rage on.  ■
Alan Manly is the founder and CEO
of Group Colleges Australia, one of
Australia’s largest private education
institutions and recently launched
the private MBA school, the Universal
Business School Sydney.