As you would expect from an exchange student, the first thing I want to comment on is the disparity between the French university system that I know and the English university system that I am just discovering. From what I have observed in my time here, I would like to argue that universities in England are managed like businesses looking for profit. 

During our first seminar for French exchange students, the teacher asked us what is the main difference between our home university and the University of Birmingham. Someone answered ‘here, they have money’. Of course, everyone laughed because we all know what it is like in France. Just wandering around this campus you can easily see that everything is refurbished, clean, mowed and trimmed. I know it must sound normal but, back home, it is really not a standard nor a priority for universities to look neat. Here, however, as my classmate said, they have money and it shows. 

The fact that students pay tens of thousands of pounds to come and study here made me initially reconsider the English university system. For context and comparison, in France I pay 178€ (£157.15) for one whole undergraduate year. This stark difference in cost, combined with my more critical outsider’s point of view led me to see English universities in an entirely different light.

To sum it up, it seems to me that the university is acting as a firm selling its product to students, thus becoming clients. But, you must consider the particular nature of the product sold which is education and knowledge. As it cannot be quantified or physically obtained, another question raised is: what are students actually paying for? The most obvious answer may be to consider the form that this product takes like classes and potential diplomas. But I am nuancing the latter because, even if students are paying the university, they are not guaranteed to obtain the degree they are paying for. However, this may sound odd compared to my previous analogy, since students would then be clients not getting the product that they have paid for. Surely, there is no such thing as making a student intentionally fail so that they would pay for one more year, but such eventualities are directly due to the singular presence of education as a product in a market logic.

As a company, the University of Birmingham is not the only one to sell education in this country – there is lots of competition. In order to assert themselves, universities across the country are ranked, leading me to discover that this university is the 14th in the country. In my opinion, it is extremely hard to rank such special entities as universities, so I took a look at the criteria used to do so by several websites. I was surprised to see features like ‘student to staff ratio’ which really backs up my idea of university as a company, thus providing customer service to students, ensuring they are happy and satisfied with the product — their education. Also, in France we are never asked what we think about the classes or very rarely so student satisfaction could not even exist as a ranking criteria.

In France, we do not even rank our universities, they are a public service provided by the state so they are all supposed to be quite equal. They obviously cannot be perfectly the same, but it stands as an ideological symbol for equal access to education. Some rankings exist but they would only consider continuation, graduation rates, and the graduate outcomes. I think that these criteria are representative enough of the French conception of higher studies as a democratic right. The most amusing thing is that French rankings often refer to international rankings like the Times Higher Education’s or Shanghai Ranking as it is really not a trend to make these in our country. 

Naturally, the higher a university ranks, the more students it attracts — in other words, clients — and the more funds it brings in. Thus, I tend to see the universities like companies constantly promoting and advertising for themselves to sell their courses and make profit. In order to do this, they develop strong visual identities to be recognisable as a brand, hence the logo on every single reading desk around this campus, the merchandise, or the use of old Joe as a symbol everywhere. The University of Birmingham also relies on a 350-person team called External Relations which is responsible for communication campaigns designed to attract students through shaping the university’s reputation. I believe the 26-million-pound budget of this division is evocative enough to show how important image and fame are to an English university. 

In the end, I would argue that the best window for a university is still its students. And I think that the administration knows it well and uses it in a ‘Our customers are our best ambassador’ way that blurs the status of students becoming learners and  clients but also walking ads for the university. For me, the career fairs are a good example to back this up. At first, I thought it was great that the university provides guidance to students about their future paths – they are getting involved and want to help. But, it could also be a way for them to ensure that their own students get high positions in top companies so they can represent them. Thus, they become a finished product, an example of how good the university is, where it can take you and then spread the word about it. This is just reinforcing the ambiguity of the student status, paying for education, not even sure whether they want to be buying a degree from this massive university-company, but still ending up being used to advertise for it and become a product themselves. 

To conclude and put into perspective everything I said, I would like to talk more about the French university system. France considers university and education as a right for the people and that it should be granted to everyone in a democratic way. It is a public service, operated by the state through a ministry and not run by universities as autonomous entities. A diploma has the same value everywhere because curriculums are set nation-wide for equality. However, public service means public fundings – it is not the students who pay tuition fees for the university to function but the state that allocates a budget to the university. Sometimes, like last year, the government decides to make cuts into the university budget so a whole service goes on strike for months, rightfully so because it is already really tight. French universities have no money, and it shows – the opposite of here.

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