Are students customers in Finnish higher education?
Vuori, Johanna (2013)
Vuori, Johanna
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
2013
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2016062313347
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2016062313347
Tiivistelmä
This study examines Finnish higher education students’ perceptions of whether students are customers based on qualitative interview data. The paper contributes to the discussion on students as customers by giving attention to students’ own voices from a country where tuition fees are not generally collected. The data are presented and analyzed using a matrix of preference and perception of seeing students as customers. While the data contained student voices insisting that it is not appropriate to talk about customers because money is not involved, different orientations showing either a preference or perception of students as customers were also described. It is concluded that seeing a student as a customer might be a solution that could be attached to various current higher education challenges which are not all related to tuition fees.