Student perceptions of themselves as ‘consumers’ of higher education

TLDR: This paper conducted a qualitative study with students across seven different UK higher education institutions and found that while there is evidence of growing identification with a consumer-oriented approach, this does not fundamentally capture their perspectives and relationships to higher education.

Abstract: This article first offers a survey of what has become an area of increasing interest in higher education: the rise of the so-called ‘student-consumer’. This has been linked in part to the marketisation of higher education and the increased personal financial contributions individual students make towards their higher education. Drawing upon a qualitative study with students across seven different UK higher education institutions, the article shows that while there is evidence of growing identification with a consumer-orientated approach, this does not fundamentally capture their perspectives and relationships to higher education. The article shows the degree of variability in attitude and approaches towards consumerism of higher education and how students still perceive higher education in ways that do not conform to the ideal student-consumer approach. The implications for university relations and how policy-makers and institutions themselves approach the issue are discussed.