MFE students: are they students or customers?

[Andy Nguyen]

I ran across an article on NYT this morning and can't help but notice the strikingly similarities between MBA and MFE programs on issues debated. Both are high cost, job placement oriented programs. They are all judged by their ability to place graduates in high paying jobs on path to a lucrative career.

While there are differences (only a handful of MFE programs are based off business schools), I'm sure we can see the trend.

This is an interesting idea and we may run a survey asking the directors of various MFE programs for their opinions on this exact issue.

Are They Students? Or ? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

A recent article in The Chicago Tribune described a continuing debate in business schools over whether their enrollees should be regarded as customers rather than as traditional students. Should the students have more say over what they are taught and even how they are judged? Whats the risk of the student-consumer approach in M.B.A. programs? And does the issue reflect broader issues in higher education?

 

[dstefan]

I do not see a contradiction there. We enroll and educate students - but an MFE being a professional degree, both the content of the courses, the overall curriculum, and the placement help and inherently part of the program.

In second thought, things could be different if required to enroll a given number of students...

 

[bigbadwolf]

This is an interesting idea and we may run a survey asking the directors of various MFE programs for their opinions on this exact issue.

You won't get the truth. Everyone -- faculty and students -- will pay lip service to "education," but of course it's about getting a well-paid job. The cachet of the school is a crucial component, as is the placement record. The alumni must also have mastered specific skills and understand and know specialised material -- this is "professional education." This holds for professional programs like management and law just as much as it does for financial engineering. These professional programs are of course run as cash cows -- witness the proliferation of MFE programs the last few years by schools that obviously don't have the resources to do justice to the students they ensnare but simply want to earn a fast buck.

 

[Eugene Krel]

I am a customer

 

[dstefan]

Interesting, Eugene, I always thought you of a student

Customers should be charged extra

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You won't get the truth. Everyone -- faculty and students -- will pay lip service to "education," but of course it's about getting a well-paid job.

Nonetheless, I want to have them on record. What they think the public wants to hear may not be what the prospective students want to hear.

If I'm going to pay 80K tuition for a 18 months program, what do you think I want to hear.
A: We are a higher education institution and our goal is to educate our students. We want to equip them with knowledge that we think is best for them.
B: We pride ourselves on getting our students high paying jobs on Wall Street and we do everything in our power to make sure they get their money worth.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Nonetheless, I want to have them on record. What they think the public wants to hear may not be what the prospective students want to hear.

If I'm going to pay 80K tuition for a 18 months program, what do you think I want to hear.
A: We are a higher education institution and our goal is to educate our students. We want to equip them with knowledge that we think is best for them.
B: We pride ourselves on getting our students high paying jobs on Wall Street and we do everything in our power to make sure they get their money worth.

(B) of course, without hesitation. You have to pay off the loan -- which is usually seen as an investment (and I'm not even considering the opportunity cost of foregone employment). That's why professional programs are exorbitantly priced -- because of the lure of subsequent high earnings. On the other hand, Ph.D programs in pure math (for example) usually come with a teaching assistantship, which waive tuition and offer a meager wage: otherwise there would be very few takers in a field where job opportunities are few and not well-remunerated.

For that $80K you expect targeted courses which employers will want to know about, and an active placement service. Of course no-one will put it as bluntly as I have, but this is the little hypocrisy both faculty and students engage in.

 

[Eugene Krel]

Interesting, Eugene, I always thought you of a student

Customers should be charged extra

I am an educated consumer

 

[GoIllini]

I am an educated consumer

You must shop at Sym's. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Nonetheless, I want to have them on record. What they think the public wants to hear may not be what the prospective students want to hear.

If I'm going to pay 80K tuition for a 18 months program, what do you think I want to hear.
A: We are a higher education institution and our goal is to educate our students. We want to equip them with knowledge that we think is best for them.
B: We pride ourselves on getting our students high paying jobs on Wall Street and we do everything in our power to make sure they get their money worth.

If I were shelling out $40K/year in tuition, I would want to know that I'm getting something with a lot of fundamental value. In suits, a designer name suit is nice, but I really want something with good fabric that's going to last for 150+ wearings.

I'm not sure if that means I'll be placed at a top firm on the first go-round, but I do think it means I'll be extremely competent relative to graduates of other programs when I graduate.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Most Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students, according to a new study. And the proportion of people who hold that view has increased to 60 percent, from 52 percent in 2007.

Study Finds Public Discontent With Colleges - NYTimes.com

 

[asds]

Most of them are customers (at least 75%).
For a 150k salary they probably quite from FE and dowhatever this job requires. You can see many of them cheating and/or not even paying attention to classes...they only care about recruiting processes.

 

[bigbadwolf]

You can see many of them cheating and/or not even paying attention to classes...they only care about recruiting processes.

It's a point I've made more than once: the financial engineering education racket is conducted cynically by both "faculty" and "students" and money -- or often the false prospect of money -- is the essential lubricant that keeps this sham going. The programs have often set up on shoestring budgets; the courses ill-designed (if designed at all) and ill-presented; and the "faculty" often hired off the street. The raison d'etre is to make a fast buck. The same motivation applies to the "students" who know they're being had but the false promise of easy lucre makes them enter into a tacit agreement with the "faculty."

The exceptions to this rule will be programs like Baruch, CMU, and a handful of others.