Education as a Product?

A quote in Simpson’s (2008) chapter is very intriguing to me--

“But treated in purely economic terms, education is a strange kind of product. What manufacturer would run a production line with a consistent failure rate of 20–40% on the way to the finished article—and perversely take pride in that failure rate on the grounds that it must indicate the high quality of the final product? As the manager of a small manufacturing enterprise remarked to me, “You people in universities astonish me. You seem perfectly happy with a failure rate of up to 40%. If I manufactured a product with that kind of failure rate I’d have to change my production processes or my suppliers or I’d be out of business in weeks” (p. 186).

Of course, education is not the same, in most regards, as a product that one manufactures and puts on a shelf. There are many variables that go into educational endeavors, as well as many different types of learners that one must effectively reach with this “product” of education. Although there are similarities, perhaps in the production process as noted in the theory of the industrialization of education, unlike products, most educational content regularly evolves.  Most products are updated on a much less regular basis.

There are so many factors that can go into educational failure rates.  The professor may not be the right type of professor for some students, some students may decide to go into a different career direction, thus, following a different educational path, personal issues may arise making school a non-priority, etc. Just because a student drops out, it doesn’t mean that the withdrawal is a direct reflection of the education that the student was given. Perhaps proactive strategies could have been used to retain the student, but perhaps not. Education is a commitment and unfortunately, some people cannot balance the commitment with their other life commitments.

Simpson, O. (2008). Cost-benefit of student retention policies and practice. In W.J. Bramble & S. Panda (Eds.), Economics of Distance and Online learning, (pp. 162–178). New York, NY: Routledge.