Marketing Models in Education: Students as Customers, Products, or Partners

Abstract

Without the resource support of the taxpayers and the faith and support of citizens and parents, American public universities as we know them today would not exist. A customer orientation recognizes the student as customer and ignores the multiple stakeholders (parents, alumni, government, and business) of higher education. This paper looks at the increasing popular paradigm of students as customers of higher education and examines its implications. Another model that includes a variety of stakeholders is examined, and how modern marketing thought might be applied to pedagogical paradigms and educational institutions.