Schools Become Businesses, Marketing Selves

According to a recent study by Public Agenda, six out of every 10 Americans now believe that colleges operate like businesses and are more concerned with their financial success than the educational experience of their students.

The study, commissioned by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, also concluded that 54 percent of Americans suspect that colleges could maintain a higher level of education while spending less.

These two facts represent a waning confidence in the collegiate education system, and for good reason. Colleges are businesses now. From subway ads to television commercials, colleges and universities are marketing education, trying desperately to win over consumers amidst a swirl of competition.

 Fortunately for higher education, the number of customers is in no danger of declining, and therein lies the problem. Before World War II, a college education was hardly vital to financial success. Entrepreneurs could, and did, build extraordinarily successful corporations without as much as a high school degree. Henry Ford, Milton Hershey and Walt Disney, just a few of the more familiar corporate names, were all out of school by age 16.

After World War II and the G.I. Bill, however, college became a much more common credential to have under one’s belt, and the job market narrowed its search onto graduates with degrees. College became an indispensible institution. Today, 87 percent of Americans believe college to be vital to job success, a statistic which practically ensures prosperity for universities.

Of course, colleges are aware of their influence as well, which makes them all the more powerful. With a steady market, customer service no longer becomes a necessity. Instead, universities can take advantage of students in order to further their income, a crime of which Fordham is undoubtedly guilty. The Office of Residential Life fines students thousands of dollars a year for transgressions as petty as propping open the door without someone in the room (a $10 fine) or a corkboard torn off the wall (a $5 fine for the entire dorm). For a school that bleeds its students of upward of $45,000 a year, a broken corkboard ought to be pocket change.

This in not even the worst of Fordham’s business misdeeds. For students requesting an air conditioning unit for medical reasons, a $350 nondescript fee is required on top of a doctor’s note, approval from Health Services, and the prior purchase of the air conditioner. This is akin to charging handicapped students $350 to use their wheelchairs–after they already bought the chairs themselves.

Where does all this money go? It is obvious that it is not funding current student life. Fordham maintains a single pool table for the entire Rose Hill campus. Instead, the money goes to projects like the renovation of Hughes Hall into a CBA building, a great development for the school in the long run, but another ugly construction site for current students. Of course, the cost of education will not be cut back during the project. Instead, Fordham students will pay more and more each year for a campus littered with construction dust and tractor noises.

There are colleges on the opposite end of the spectrum as well. While Fordham recruits students by touting that fact its faculty will provide “in-depth advising,” massive schools like the University of Virginia promise exceptional workout facilities and a stunning array of recreational opportunities including a game room, coffee shops, and concerts by artists like Dave Matthews Band and Derek Trucks. These seem to be departures from the purpose of college, which is supposedly academia, but in the business of college, creating a utopia is a necessity. If Fordham can promise New York City, then UVA has to compete somehow.

College has become competition at its finest. Buildings are constructed, new programs instilled and all of it is done to recruit prospective students and to keep up the cash flow. The ramifications can be both positive and negative, but ultimately, students have to be prepared for rising costs to compensate for the millions spent on future students.

After all, with the market corned and their product essential, universities have the monopoly that for corporations is just a dream.

Jonathan Gillis, FCRH ’13, is an English major from McLean, VA.