Saturday, October 15, 2011

Selling Ourselves, Selling Our Students

At colleges and universities, do we run the risk of shifting from education as product and student as consumer to student as product and corporations as customers?

Students go to the bookstore and by the books for their first semester and they're inundated with flyers for credit cards. I've always been trouble by the number of credit card come-ons we subject young college students to. We should be helping to teach them fiscal responsibility, rather than encouraging them to incur credit card debt before they've even started their college careers - much less gainful employment.

This kids comments are a little over the top, but I think he has the right to criticize this relationship.

After Insulting College's Ties to Debit Cards, Student Kicked Out:

Students havenot made secrettheir distaste for Higher One, the company with whichmany colleges workto issue loan refunds via debit card. At issue are the fees and charges for using the card, which sometimes doubles as a student ID, and the company's and colleges' marketing (which tends to result in students sticking with the card). Nonetheless, a student at Catawba Valley Community College who complained on Facebook about the relationship between the two entities was apparently barred from campus for two semesters because of his comments. Besidescriticizing the partnershipon the North Carolina college's own Facebook page, he also posted, "Did anyone else get a bunch of credit card spam in their CVCC inbox today? So, did CVCC sell our names to banks, or did Higher One? I think we should register CVCC's address with every porn site known to man. Anyone know any good viruses to send them?" According to anotice of suspensionfrom the college, the student's comment violateda policyagainst "commission of any other offense which, in the opinion of the administration or faculty, may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community." The student has sought help from theFoundation for Individual Rights in Educationin his appeal for reinstatement.

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