ABSTRACT
Governments around the world acknowledge the importance of higher education for national economic performance. With varying levels of intensity, they also appear to view students as acting as rational ‘consumers’ or ‘customers’ of higher education, asserting that an individual investment in higher education pays off in terms of better career prospects and other life-benefits. The idea of student choice has, as a consequence, become a significant element in political rhetoric. The consumerist perspective, however, underplays two major considerations – that higher education contributes significantly to the social good, and that students have to contribute their own energies to their development.
