One of the most important measures of performance in Higher Education is ‘student satisfaction’, as measured through the annual National Student Survey.
There’s nothing wrong in principle with gauging student satisfaction after three years of (expensive) education. But in practice final year students tend to be satisfied with manageable assignments and high grades. So higher student satisfaction can only be guaranteed by lowering educational standards, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction…
Wouldn’t it be good to gauge a student’s response to their education over time? My Twitter timeline gave some clues this morning.
One noted how far he’d come in five years since graduating, and how well his year group were doing.
Another blogged about his experiences in the workplace one year on, and polled some classmates for their experiences.
This isn’t scientific or statistically valid, but education should be a long-term investment – just as student debt is a long-term commitment. So a longitudinal study of graduate achievement and satisfaction would be valuable addition to the snapshot provided by the National Student Survey.
I’ll leave the final word to one of last year’s graduates who’s degree has been less directly useful to his emerging career.
As for working in PR, that didn’t really work out for me. I’m happier carving out a new career in Digital Marketing and SEO. I do still feel, however, that my degree has come to some use as it taught me to be more analytical and inclined towards finding concrete facts as opposed to swallowing assumptions whole.
I don’t know whether than amounts to a satisfied ‘customer’ or not – but it sounds like an acknowledgment of value.
PR Studies 
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