<![CDATA[This is just scary]]>Jender blogged a few weeks back  about one aspect of the redoing of higher ed the current UK government seems keen on.  And I certainly don’t want to dismiss all the current goals, such as increasing  social mobility.  But a chill goes over me when I read this:

Mandelson to announce plans to modernise ‘ivory tower’ universities

Business secretary wants students and parents to be treated more like customers in proposals to overhaul higher education.

So what’s wrong with that?  Why can universities be more like corporations  turning out a product?  And aren’t Secretaries of Business really good judges of what the product  is? 

I’d be really interested in hearing what you all think.  My own worry is that universities get put under a great deal of pressure to produce a product that can be recognized by the consumer, and that  tends to lead to, among other things, massive grade  inflation and all that entails, which is a sense  that money is just about enough to entitle a student to be called educated.

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