Online Learning - Hydroxychloroquine for the Chinese International Student Market?

Universities around the world are bracing for the "reverse-tsunami" in recruitment from China that is expected to result from the Coronavirus pandemic.  Higher education institutions in those primary international student destinations of the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand stand to take a massive and potentially crippling hit in tuition income if, as expected, enrolments nosedive in the next academic year.  For Australia and New Zealand, this crisis is already very real, impacting the beginning of the new academic year starting in January 2020.  For northern hemisphere, September 2020 is approaching and, with it, a looming sense of dread.

These fears appear well founded, with John Ross of Times Higher Education reporting Australian universities including Sydney, Queensland and New South Wales each expect to see reduced income in the A$470m - A$600m ballpark.  Deborah Terry, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Queensland and Chair of Universities Australia, has warned that there could be as many as 21000 redundancies across Australia's HE sector in the next 6 months unless action was taken to bail-out struggling universities.

With major destinations including the UK and US struggling to contain the Coronavirus, a wildfire of anxiety is engulfing the international student community. Students and their families will be constantly and continuously reassessing the risks throughout the summer. Their anxiety is also backed up with concerning data from a recent British Council survey.  Richard Adams and Severin Carrell reported for the The Guardian that, of the 8000 prospective Chinese international students surveyed by the British Council, 22% (1760) intended to cancel their plans to study abroad. More worryingly, 39% (3120) were undecided, with only 27% (2160) indicating their intention to go ahead with overseas study.

UK institutions will be keenly aware that any nosedive in enrolments in UK universities will not be evenly spread, with some universities "modelling between a 50% and 100% drop in international students".  Deferrals, where students would delay studies until the following 2021/22 academic year, are also on the rise.

For those of us in higher education, the shift away from face-to-face teaching to online and remote learning in response to lockdowns, first in China and then around the world, has been swift. Universities are now encouraging faculty to prepare for online delivery to be the norm until at least December 2020.  This may be less of an issue for returning students than for new intakes in September 2020, with many universities concerned that, while online delivery may be able to ensure academic courses are taken, it cannot adequately compensate for the full social and cultural experience essential in helping new students acclimatise to university. Nevertheless, it seems clear that online learning or remote learning is being explored by senior management as a potential "vaccine", with the 2020/21 academic year likely to be, at least, partially delivered online.

If universities can, the thinking goes, persuade new students to enrol and take their first semester online, or perhaps even the whole 2020/21 academic year, then revenue streams will be shored up, and students will still be able to complete courses towards their degree.  This seems logical.  A good idea.  A potential bulwark: turning a tuition-fee-headshot into a tuition-fee TKO. Still bad, but not quite as bad as the alternative.

There is, however, a major obstacle with regards to Chinese international students: the PRC education authorities' current process for recognition of degrees earned outside Mainland China.  And this overseas degree recognition process, without significant changes in the immediate term, has varying implications for Chinese international students and their host universities depending on the student profile.

Chinese International Students: Getting the Overseas Degree Recognised in the PRC.  
As it stands at present, all PRC nationals who earn a degree outside the PRC must get that award recognised by the PRC Ministry of Education.  Without this, the degree is simply not recognised in Mainland China.  For most students, this is a major issue - without recognition of the overseas degree, students will be unable to: (i) apply for Masters, PhD study at Chinese universities; (ii) unable to work in any public sector organisation including state-owned companies, schools, universities, hospitals, government departments, state-media or NGO; (iii) unable to apply to most major private sector companies and multinational corporations; (iv) unable to take any formal career examinations operated by the state (PG entry, Civil Service), and enable students to take advantage of preferential terms related to household registration (户口) and other benefits for returning students.

Inside China, any degrees delivered must be approved and recognised by the Ministry of Education (MoE). A full database of current programmes is provided by the MoE and updated regularly.  When students receive their degree (sometimes dual degrees from a Chinese and foreign university) they must then register their foreign degree online - with only those programmes officially approved for delivery listed as an option.

For students earning a degree outside the PRC, the process is different.  They must go through a two-stage process to which includes (i) obtaining a Overseas Returning Student Certificate (留学回国人员证明) and then (ii) registration with the Overseas Degree Certificate Recognition System (国（境）外学历学位认证系统). On completion of studies, students must follow a set of steps to ensure they can get their degree recognised.

Step 1: Obtaining the Overseas Returning Student Certificate (留学回国人员证明)

This certificate is issued through the PRC Embassies and Consulates in the host country.  For example, the PRC Consulate in Manchester allows students from 31 universities to apply for the certificate.  The following documents and evidence are required:

1. Degree Certificate from the Overseas university. 
2. Transcripts (as degree certs in UK do not show start and end dates of study).
3. Date of initial arrival in UK (Immigration Stamp in their PRC Passport).
4. Admission Date (to UK degree) which should be after the initial arrival date (see 3).
5. Proposed date of return to China (if already returned, then this should be the date of return to China)
6. Scanned copies of Passport ID page, UK Student Visa, and UK Entry stamps. 

This can be done via post within the UK or from China, if the student has already returned home.  

The crucial aspect to recognise here is that *students must evidence their presence inside the country where the foreign degree has been delivered for the duration of that degree*.  

Only once students who have studied overseas have obtained this Overseas Returning Student Certificate (留学回国人员证明) can they then apply to have their foreign degree recognised in Mainland China.  The only other way to have a foreign degree recognised is if that degree has been officially approved for delivery in the PRC (and that specific degree programme is listed on the MoE's official database).  Without one of these two conditions being met, it is impossible to successfully register their foreign degree and have it recognised in China. 

Providing the student has met one of these two criteria (studied on an MoE approved Sin-Foreign degree OR studied overseas and successfully obtained an Overseas Returning Student Certficate from the relevant PRC Embassy/Consulate), they can then move to register their foreign degree.  

This process can now be done entirely online (since 2019) and involves registering with the PRC Ministry of Education Overseas Student Service Center (教育部留学服务中心) through their Overseas Diploma and Degree Certification System (国（境）外学历学位认证), which is adminsitered by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, a body under the Ministry of Education which also oversees all foreign university recruitment activities within the PRC.  

The Problem of an Online Degree from an Foreign University 

So. A particularly laborious and bureaucratic process for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese international students who graduate each year from universities outside Mainland China.  Yet, the system outline above presents specific challenges and potential problems down 12-36 months from now for universities education Chinese international students for any proportion of their degree via online delivery. 

Two specific problems arise.  

Firstly, in order to obtain the Overseas Returning Student Certificate, PRC nationals must demonstrate their presence in the country of study for the duration of their degree.  

Secondly, the CSCSE certification process specifically excludes foreign degrees delivered through non-face-to-face learning methods (which are all but impossible to get recognised within the PRC): 

"通过函授、远程教育及网络教育等非面授学习方式获得的国（境）外学历学位证书或高等教育文凭"

"Overseas (foreign) degree certificates or higher education diplomas obtained through non-face-to-face learning methods such as correspondence, distance education and online education"

The At-Risk Chinese International Student Types.
This issue will impact several specific groups of Chinese international students most (these examples are maybe not exactly applicable to Australian and New Zealand unis, where academic year runs Jan-Dec).  Some final year students may begin to encounter problems this summer.

1. Current final year UG students who returned to China in Semester 2 (Spring semester) and completed their final semester online.
2. Current Master students who have returned to China and will study online for Semester 2 (Spring) and Semester 3 (Summer)
3. Chinese international UG students who enter their final year of study in Sept 2020 and study either part or all of their final year remotely (online). 
4. Chinese international UG students admitted in Sept 2020 and study either part or all of their final year remotely (online). 
5. Chinese international Masters students admitted in Sept 2020 who study either part or all of their final year remotely (online)

Institutions have a fiduciary responsibility to their students, and students falling into these categories need to be able to trust they will not be channeled into online delivery if that negatively impacts the credentials they earn.  While this may be a consequence of the PRC regulations, the responsbility still (IMHO) rests with the recruiting institution.  Especially as the motivation for shifting to online learning is not borne primarily out of concern for the students, but out of consideration of the bottom-line.

Next Steps?
A major concern here is that both Chinese international students and their institutions are not aware of these requirements. The risk appears to be borne entirely by the students themselves, yet the proposition of large numbers of already anxious students being unable to register the degrees for which they've worked incredibly hard constitutes a significant reputational risk which may not become apparent until it is too late to fix.

The requirement to document presence in the country as a condition of the Overseas Returning Student Certificate, and the stipulation by the CSCSE that they do not recognise online, distance learning or non-face-to-face learning for foreign degrees, presents a major unknown for higher education institutions.

As institutions consider the shift to online delivery, motivated almost entirely by a desire to protect a crucial source of revenue, senior management need to seek clarification from the PRC Embassy Education Section, the Ministry of Education, and the CSCSE - and guarantees that students who complete credit towards their degree via online delivery (i.e. up to 50% of credits earned between January 2020 and December 2021 - or whenever the Coronavirus crisis subsides), will be able to have those degrees recognised.

Until such a guarantee can be given, in writing, with support from the Chinese authorities, institutions have an ethical responsibility to advise Chinese international students of the potential impact of completely any of their degree online.


Dr. Mike Gow is a Lecturer in International Business at the School of Strategy and Leadership at Coventry University.  He previously taught at Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University and was Global Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU Shanghai from 2013 to 2015.  His research examines the role and mobilization of non-state sectors including higher education, media, entertainment, sport and consumer markets in contemporary state-building projects in the People's Republic of China. He holds a PhD in East Asian Studies from the University of Bristol's School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies.

Pursuing a University Education Overseas: Advice for Chinese Students

Posted below is the original English version of an article published by Financial Times Chinese 金融时报中文版 on Friday 5th April.  Thanks to the FT Chinese team for the translation.  

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Pursuing a University Education Overseas: Advice for Chinese Students

Published in Financial Times Chinese 金融时报中文版:

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001082190?full=y (Chinese 中文)

Friday 5^th April 2019

Over the last decade, the number of Chinese citizens pursuing a university education overseas has exploded.  According to figures from the Ministry of Education for 2017, 608,400 international students from China were enrolled on university degree programmes around the world, with the largest numbers in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.  

            As many FT Chinese readers may be aware, articles on Chinese international students have appeared frequently in the media coverage of the higher education sector over the last decade, including concerns over their impact on the campus environment, the rapid growth of recruitment from China, and issues of academic integrity and plagiarism. More recently, the role of the Chinese Student and Scholar Associations (CSSA), which affiliated to the PRC Embassy’s Education Section, has come under scrutiny, with accusation they are represent a threat to the value of academic freedom. 

            More recently, incidents at Duke University and the University of Maryland in the US, and the University of Liverpool in the UK, have raised concerns over different forms prejudiced against international students from China.  At Maryland, a Professor recently resigned his tenured position following allegations he accused students of cheating on the basis of their nationality. At Duke, faculty raised a complaint with senior management that students were speaking in Chinese on campus, with the Director of Graduate Studies then sending an email requesting student to speak in English only on campus.  The Director issued an apology before stepping down from the Director of Studies position, while Duke President Vincent Price and the entire senior management team at Duke issued a statement clarifying the institution’s commitment to the values of equality and diversity.

            All the issues raised in media coverage on Chinese international students are prominent in the minds of educators at universities and their potential impact both inside the classroom and across the broader campus environment. While some incidents demand a stricter line, any formal action taken is not due to the nationality of the student, but only where student conduct, regardless of nationality, does not uphold the values which students commit to when they accept an offer to study at university.  In addition, universities have been consistently clear that Chinese international students are a valued and welcome part of the university community.

            There are, however, challenges which are arguably more difficult for our Chinese international students to overcome.  While universities are actively exploring and adapting to help our students adjust and integrate to university life in a foreign country, the students themselves, and the way they perceive the university, their professors and themselves, is the single most important factor. Many of the views expressed here are communicated to all my students, regardless of nationality, but discussed here to help any prospective or current students from China consider understand how they can empower themselves and gain the maximum benefit from their study overseas. 

            The decision to attend a university overseas is a major commitment made by both the student and their family back in China. While parents face pressures to finance their children’s studies and living expenses, the pressures on students are also pronounced, with students very aware of the sacrifices their parents and family make to provide this opportunity for them.  Yet, while these pressures can motivate students to focus on their studies, a number of other factors combine to present young students from China with a range of obstacles to achieving their potential. These include the prospect of leaving China and venturing to another country; undertaking a university education in a second language; integrating into the broader cultural environment of their host country, and adapting to a very different educational system.

            This last aspect, of adjusting to the university educational philosophy, is perhaps the most challenging to overcome and, it is very important to note, represents an adjustment that all students need to make when moving from high school to university.  In high schools around the world the focus is usually always on passing an exam. Grades mean everything. Teachers and schools are focused on getting students through the exams. Nowhere on Earth is this more true than in China’s high school system with the ruthless Gaokao exam. Yet, if students bring this exam focus with them to university, it not only limits their academic development, but also denies them a true university education.

To address this issue, we must ask ourselves a fundamental question: what is a university education aimed at accomplishing?  One standard answer is that a university education allows students to obtain a degree. In such a university, success is measured by grades and performance. Classes aim to fill a student’s mind with knowledge. Professors educate their students. The problem with this view is that it reduces a university to a process of credentialing; defines knowledge as fixed, and reifies education as something which is done to students. If this is all that a university education provides, then why not save money and ask students to read books or take an online degree? Or is there another way we can think of a university education? Can we change the way our students view the university and the way they view themselves?

            To answer this, we really need to confront the question of what families are paying for when they pay university tuition fees.  Students are not buying a degree.  If this were, true, the degree itself would become worthless, something available to anyone with sufficient funds.  So, what are tuition fees buying?  The very simple answer is that we are buying three things for our children when we pay for their university education: freedom, opportunity and time.  Freedom from the need for our sons and daughters to earn money to survive. Opportunities for new experiences within the university’s vibrant scholarly and extracurricular environment. Time to both identify and transform themselves into the person they wish to be. We are not buying a university degree. We are investing in an education which will allow our children to become who they want to be, find the path they wish to take, and decide how they will contribute to society.  If this argument is persuasive, the next question we must ask ourselves is “how can students get the most out of this investment”?  Students who view their university education as a system of credentialing, of simply obtaining a qualification, will not only struggle to perform at university, they will very likely not enjoy the experience. This attitude effectively means the student is not “at university” but is simply taking courses towards a certificate.  Changing the way our students view themselves, their professors and the university itself, is absolutely essential in getting the greatest benefit of a university education.

There are generally two ways to view the university.  The first is probably the most common: as a form of production line.  Students go through each semester taking classes and taking assessments, with grades measuring the improvements made.  This view implies that education is a something which is done to a student, and that all students entering university are as well prepared as each other.  Yet, universities are not factories.  A far more suitable and appropriate analogy involves considering online games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, or Fortnite.  The university provides a rich world where students exist for the duration of their studies.  Students aim to accumulate various weapons, skills, tools and knowledge – with every student creating and building a very different and unique profile as they explore this world.  This cannot be achieved solely through attending classes and sitting exams, but through active engagement in extracurricular activities, sports, societies, internships, community engagement and other activities which allow students to build a variety of skills.

Outside China, this expanded understanding of a university education is also vital for enhancing engagement in the classroom.  As Fei Xiaotong, the renowned sociologist, argued, western societies function differently from Chinese society 团体格局, emphasizing individual identity over social conventions.  Fei argues that, in western society, identity is indicated to others by your membership of groups. Which extracurricular groups you join indicate your individual identity to other people, while friendships and networks centre around the identity you create for yourself and the groups you join. This applies to membership of sports clubs, political parties, pressure groups and student societies. Contrast this with Fei’s model of Chinese society 差序格局 where your identity and, crucially, appropriate conduct is determined by the person you’re interacting with and the social role you are performing: you are a father, a son, a wife, a sister, a student, an employee, an manager or a friend – and behave accordingly in those settings. Yet, in a western university classroom - be it in the UK, US, Australia, Canada or elsewhere - students are expected to bring their identity to class, to show their classmates and professors who they really are and where their interests lie. This is vital aspect of classroom dynamics which helps professors build rapport with students and enriches the educational experience for all concerned. If we know who you are, we can make the class more meaningful and important for you.

In this regard, extracurricular activities are arenas for independent learning and socializing, allowing students to develop language, cross-cultural and social skills, along with developing their time management, organizational and team-working abilities.  Whether students participate in sports clubs, academic societies, business forums, or pursue hobbies related to the arts, music and culture, participation allows them to both build networks with others and transform themselves.  This is where students put theory into practice, acquiring not only knowledge but a range of skills and experiences, similar to the way characters in online games acquire new weapons, tools, attributes and friends who allow them to not only survive but thrive. There is, however, a vital and crucial difference between online games and university : online games are virtual, but all students, regardless of the success they achieve in transforming themselves through their university education, must enter real world upon graduation. And who they are at the point they graduate is shaped by their engagement inside and outside the classroom. 

Within the classroom, Professors are often viewed as fountains of knowledge. Yet in contemporary universities, our role is not simply to transfer content from ourselves to our students. The best professors show a range of characteristics that include passion for their own subject; genuine care for the students they teach, and the ability to build rapport with their students. Our goal as university lecturers is not to ensure our students all acquire the same knowledge, but to help our students discover their own interests and bring their own perspectives. Our primary function is to ensure students do not get lost exploring the university world, acting as guides to keep them on track, with the hope our classes will provide a spark which lights the fires in our students’ minds. The best students are always those who have an intrinsic interest in the subject they study, coupled with extrinsic motivations to build a career around the subjects which fascinate them personally. Furthermore, in a straight competition on the job market after graduation, the student who has identified their true passion and is genuinely enthusiastic about their chosen path will undoubtedly, over time, outperform other students whose motivations come from solely external rewards. If you don’t love something and compete against someone who does, you will ultimately fail. Similarly, the best students understand that knowledge is neither fixed nor perfect, and that critical thinking is not so much a skill as a disposition or way of viewing the world aimed at refining one’s own understanding of it. Those students explore their subject with the aim of understanding, rather than just absorbing and memorizing information. Academically, they focus on forming strong arguments which they can support with evidence and rational discussion and are concerned less with producing work which is right or wrong.

            This all leads to the question of what students from China can do themselves to ensure they succeed in their studies and reap the greatest rewards from this investment. There are certain habits which all the most successful students have: attending all classes, organizing time and having a clear schedule for exam revision and coursework deadlines. Yet for students from China in particular, there are other important considerations.  Firstly, recognize that a university education is not a theoretical exercise. If you were to explain an online game like League of Legends to someone, it would be much less effective than helping them play the game – and that is why attendance is so important. Secondly, students are absolutely the most important factor in any classroom – so make sure you bring your personality, interests and unique identity to the classroom and show your classmates and professors who you are. This is the single greatest contribution you can make to your own education. Beyond these two essential factors, a major obstacle faced by students from China is the very different context encountered overseas. In China, the social, cultural and digital landscape is profoundly different.  Professors may use examples in class to explain concepts. For example, on a business studies or computer science degree, we may discuss Amazon, Facebook, Twitter – not JD.com, Taobao, WeChat or Weibo. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, Spotify, Google and Apple Music are the digital spaces we spend our downtime, and staying with the Chinese bubble of iQiyi, Xiami, QQ音乐, Youku, Bilibili and Baidu will limit your exposure to the trends, fashions and issues that help form both understanding of your adopted country and friendships with people from outside China. In this regard, any and all activities you engage in which help you become a fluent communicator in and across different cultures can be viewed as part of your university education, whether that’s researching for an essay, participating in a student society, or attending concerts or sports events.  Travelling to new places, socializing, attending guest lectures - even watching a documentary or film on Netflix late at night can be a form of learning without studying. As long as you are aware of the value of such activities, nothing you do is a waste of time. The trick, as with so many aspects of modern life, is to balance your academic commitments with any other activities – and make sure you bring those other experiences into the classroom wherever possible.

            Over the years, I’ve discussed with colleagues about the most significant challenges they faced when travelling overseas for study. One recurring aspect mentioned in conversation with friends from China, many who have studied overseas at undergraduate, Masters and/or PhD level, is that other countries can feel very cold and unwelcoming on arrival. No one will likely meet you at the airport, there will be few activities organized in your first few days.  This can appear unfriendly, but is attributable to a greater value of private space. This is also another reason that extracurricular activities are so important – if you are happy to stay in your dorm 24/7, then this is exactly what will happen. The same colleagues and friends from China, many who have lived and worked overseas for a long time, also discuss the other side of the coin: that the friendships formed can be lifelong and real and the freedom from obligations allows for much more control over leisure time and work-life balance.

            A final piece of advice relates to my own experiences teaching students from China in the UK and US education systems over the last decade, including at NYU Shanghai and Xi’an jiaotong Liverpool University, St Andrews University and now at Coventry University.  This includes students who performed very well in high school, and those who did not – from Gaokao Tier 1 to Tier 4 students.  It is vital that students recognize that past performance is no reliable indicator of future success and that, once admitted to university, that academic record makes little difference. Some of the best students I have taught arrived in my classroom after a difficult experience in high school. Many, regardless of academic record, are affected by self-doubt and low confidence. Yet many of these same students have excelled, largely down to their own initiative and recognition of the true meaning of a university education: as a voyage of self-discovery where your true goal is to find good answers to the several deeper questions. Who am I? What contribution do I want to make? What path do I wish to take in life? Trying to answer these questions is the true purpose of a university education, and by simply putting these at the heart of the academic journey, students can not only open the doors to new experiences at university, but shape their personal and professional lives well beyond graduation.

Mike Gow is a Lecturer in International Business at Coventry University’s School of Strategy and Leadership.  He previously held posts at NYU Shanghai and Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University after completing his doctorate at the University of Bristol.

Are Students Customers (and If not, what are they paying for? Some Thoughts

I was asked recently about my views on the marketization of higher education, specifically in relation to the UK and students’ view of themselves as customers. Over the last few weeks, this question of has been niggling away at the back of my mind almost non-stop: if students aren’t the customers of universities, then what are they?  And, more importantly, how would I explain this to a student if needed?

This is a discussion that has been ever present in UK HE since the introduction of top-up fees in 1997, and has become even more prominent since the lamentable decision to withdraw funding for UK undergraduate students under the Con-Dem coalition government under Cameron-Clegg.  Yet my own teaching experience has brought me into contact with other systems (Chinese, French, British and US) which place different financial demands on students. While most of my Chinese students and their families have paid tuition fees upfront, international students I’ve taught have funded their education via some configuration of cash, financial aid, bursaries, scholarships and student loans. They often have an even stronger view of themselves as customers – or it is manifest more openly. Colleagues in the UK, US and Australia have reported that students can become very demanding (some crackers stories of students and this Guardian article seems to capture this pretty well: Academics Anonymous: My students have paid £9000 and now they think they own me).  There are more head-on rejections like this one on Slate concerning US HE, but while I find these logical and persuasive, they tend to argue points on salary and how tuition fees are used rather than questioning the very foundation underpinning the student-as-customer mindset. 

The problem of students viewing themselves, or being viewed by institutions, as customers is both simple and nuanced. In simple terms, this view commodifies an undergraduate degree and reduces it to the status of something that is purchased.  The nuance is that this characterizes higher education as something that is done to students, visited upon them, by their professors and lecturers.  The commodification of higher education is straightforward, but it is this more nuanced understanding of higher education which more severely undermines both the students, the academic faculty and the institution in creating the conditions conducive to a rewarding and enlightening educational experience.

This blog post will give some thoughts of mine on two aspects of this problem. Firstly, a quick look at how I’ve made efforts, without directly addressing this student-as-customer perspective, to give students a more helpful perspective on their undergraduate education.  Secondly, some views on how we really need to reframe this discussion to fix clearly in our own minds how to refute this misleading and ultimately damaging notion that students are buying an education. 

Vessels or Fires: The Student’s Mind

In my Year one/Freshman intro lectures over the last two years, I’ve spent the first hour going through the syllabus with my students (classes varying in size between 82 students and 170 students).  The second hour has been spent laying out how I expect students to approach their studies, and what the differences are between high school and university.  I’ve never directly addressed the student-as-consumer question in class, but focused more on encouraging students to shift the way the view themselves, their education and how they approach syllabus content, lectures and seminars. 

I won’t go into too much detail here, as this part of the lecture is a 30-40min exploration of good habits, bad habits (and how the best students are often a mix of both who learn to enjoy their university experience), but the general gist is to challenge students’ thinking about their minds as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge.  This small point seems to make a very clear impact from day one, and is reinforced consistently throughout the semester (including in the design of assessments which allows students to explore topics and content of particular interest to them personally). 

This part of the lecture is pretty brief, but students get it.  I can often see them looking at this picture thinking (above): But isn’t that what we’re here to do? Learn things and fill our minds with new knowledge?

Until, of course, they see the next picture. 

This is the way I want all of my students to regard their minds while at university: as a fire in need of fuel. This view of their educational journey – as a mission to kindle that fire and find the very unique combination of fuels that make their own fire burn brightest – allows them to extend their educational experience beyond the classroom.  Viewing their mind in this way (I hope) will allow them to engage more actively with (a) syllabus and module/course content and assessments, and (b) all activities they pursue outside the classroom through extra and co-curricular activities.  Additionally, I would hope it might inform their module/course choices, encouraging them to explore subjects and topics in which they possess an intrinsic interest, wherever possible. 

Again, this attitude towards university is something I hope my students will foster from day one.  The question to which we now turn is: how can this “Mind-as-Fire” disposition help combat the damaging effects of the student-as-customer perspective that many, if not most, students seem to have. 

Students Are Not Buying An Education

Before we get deeper into this, its vital to acknowledge how the introduction of undergraduate education tuition fees transformed UK higher education.  This will help us obliterate the student-as-customer argument.  What follows is a little UK centric, but makes a point that is absolutely valid in any context where tuition fees are charged directly to the student. 

Before the introduction of tuition fees in 1997, who paid tuition fees? It was the UK government. Was the UK government buying degrees for young British students?  No.  Definitely not.  Were the UK government the customer of the universities when they paid tuition? No.  Definitely not. 

So what exactly were they doing when they paid grants towards to tuition fees? 

They were investing in young people.  And that, ostensibly, is what changed with tuition fees.  The UK government withdrew its investment in school leavers, placing the burden for that investment upon the students (and families) themselves. The resulting shift in attitudes has been the most lamentable and damaging consequence of the introduction of tuition fees, both amongst students and at the institutional and sectoral levels. 

So What Exactly Are Students Paying For?

This is the crux of the matter and to answer this effectively, we need to acknowledge that students are paying for something:  freedom, time and opportunity. 

Tuition fees and maintenance loans buy time.  They function to remove the students’ economic necessity: placing the student in a context where they can pursue and accumulate cultural and social capital free from the need sustain themselves through labour.  

Some of you may be recognizing a theoretical framing here:  Pierre Bourdieu.  And you’d be right.  As Bourdieu asserted: “it is in fact impossible to account for the structure and functioning of the social world unless one reintroduces capital in all its forms and not solely in the one form recognized by economic theory” 

Our students need to study to ensure they achieve the best degree possible.  A degree is a form on institutionalized cultural capital that attests, beyond dispute, that the holder has credentials. It cannot be removed once bestowed. It cannot be contested once awarded. 

Yet by far the more important form of cultural capital at university is what Bourdieu called embodied cultural capital. This comes in the forms of taste, skills, attitudes, dispositions and behaviours inculcated throughout our childhood socialization and educational experiences. Embodied cultural capital is at the heart of privilege, where those in positions of privilege have had a far longer investment in education aimed at the embodiment of cultural capital.  To give an example, a student might have bought a MacBook, but this is essentially a form of economic capital unless the student possesses the skills, the embodied cultural capital, to use different software, be that MS Office, Garageband, FinalCutPro, Twitter, GoogleDrive or anything else we care to think of.  University offers various different ways this embodied cultural capital can be accumulated, not always through formal classes and assessments. 

Here, the concern isn’t with the social justice implications of cultural capital, but with the way students should view their education once admitted to an undergraduate program in order to help them realize the greatest benefits. In this way university is not dissimilar to World of Warcraft or other online role-playing games: students aim in this game is to form their own persona through the active pursuit of embodied cultural capital.  This form of cultural capital can’t be bought with money, it can only be accumulated through experience, and the university provides a vibrant landscape with an endlessly flourishing and infinite variety for students to pursue.  The major difference between university and World of Warcraft is that you don’t get endless lives, you have to use the time wisely, and at the end you get to be that person in the real world regardless of how well you’ve done.  Your prior socialization and education allows you to enter university more tooled up than many of your peers (Private schooling? Private tuition? Extra-curricular activities?), so its no level playing field, but the results are far from certain, and for those who are more successful in identifying what they’re interested in, what path they want to take in the real world, and who it is they want to be, the benefits of investing in a university education can be limitless.

Students who view themselves as customers are, then, not really at university.  They’re just taking modules/courses towards a certificate.  Our challenge as academics is to get them to open their eyes; to recognize the myriad opportunities available inside and outside the classroom at university; to use this freedom and time to consciously and reflexively take advantage of the opportunities that university presents, and from Day One to adopt an approach to university that liberates them from this damaging and restrictive straight jacket that is the student-as-customer mindset. 

We need to do our students a solid here and make damn sure they realize this from the minute they arrive.

MG

(I will follow this up with a post on social capital in the university – specifically the role of social capital in enthusing students in relation to argument laid ut above.  However, there are a number of thoughts I have on this related to research obsessiveness, adjuncts and zero contract hours, overuse of GTAs and other features of the modern university that hugely impact on social capital.  So a separate post will follow in a week or so).