The Student Investor Theodore Leverenz Institutional Research Georgetown College Higher education has accepted change as necessary for survival in the next century. As traditional perceptions of higher education have had to change, so too must traditional perceptions of students change. For example, the medical model views students as coming to higher education with academic weaknesses that must be treated. Those holding to a gas station model view students as one-stop purchasers of education.
Students drive in, passively fill up with knowledge and drive away.
The product model takes a manufacturing perspective. Students, the raw materials, are taken in, put through a process that molds them as the institution believes is appropriate, and supplies them to business and industry through the marketing efforts of campus career placement centers. This model allows only limited attention to the feelings, goals, aspirations, and ambitions of students. These models share two additional disadvantages. And students must go where education takes place.