Re: business models

[jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu (James Mclean)]

kyle forinash says:
> The main problem with thinking of education as a service industry is that I
> can think of no other service where the quality of the service is almost
> totally determined by the provider rather than the customer (no matter if
> you think the customer is the student or the company that hires him or her,
> or the tax payer). For better or worse, we, as "providers" set standards
> and monitor our own quality.

It has been noted that there are a few other professions which are
self-regulated.  But it seems to me that an even more fundamental problem
is that the degree of success in the service depends criticaly on someone
other than the provider.

For those who view the student as the customer, I cannot think of any other
case in which the quality of service is so dependent on effort required of
the customer.

For those who view society as the customer, the students must be viewed as
something like raw materials, and I cannot think of any other case in which
the raw materials have a will of their own.

-- 
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UCSD