As academic administrators and governing bodies have looked for ways to bolster their institutions' finances in times of budget constraints, they have turned for models to the corporate world. Many successful companies seem to be user-friendly and oriented toward customer service.

The lesson that colleges and universities have learned is that they should treat their students as customers. But adopting that ideology may unintentionally compromise the traditional academic expectations of student and faculty responsibility. Academic institutions are becoming what intellectuals used to abhor -- enterprises whose focus is on the bottom line, and whose assessments rely solely on quantity, not quality or critical analysis.

It is time for a fundamental change in perspective.

We need to keep traditional academic expectations in mind as we create a different relationship with students. Instead of letting students assume that merely paying tuition entitles them to a good grade, we must engage them in their own education, require them to take responsibility for their ultimate success, and acknowledge the role of faculty members as experts in their fields who are, nonetheless, still learning and fallible. The most appropriate analogy for such a new relationship comes from medicine, not business: Students are like patients, and professors are like doctors.

Discussions of students as customers beg the question, "What is a customer?" We typically think of customers as those who buy goods or services. Looking at higher education, we assume that students are paying for their education. We also assume that, if everything else is equal, cost is a primary factor in a student's educational decisions, and to attract and retain students, we must offer a relatively affordable education, as well as good customer service.

But are students customers? Do they pay for their education? As Everett Frost, an emeritus professor of anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University, points out, tuition is comparable to the co- payment that a patient makes at the doctor's office when the employer's health-insurance company pays the balance. The real customers of postsecondary public education are those who pay for it -- in particular, legislators and citizens. When we measure customer satisfaction with academe, we should examine the quality of student performance; good performance should be rewarded by increased public appropriations for colleges and universities, and additional awards from foundations and other philanthropic organizations.

High-quality performance can clearly improve an institution's reputation and result in increased enrollments, regardless of cost. However, that kind of change can take several decades.

There is no doubt that education should be affordable, and that some areas of our institutions, like financial aid, should focus on serving their public. However, applying the model of student as customer is wholly inappropriate for student-faculty interactions, and it may lead to some undesired consequences. For example, students who feel that they are customers, and that customers are always right, may be too quick to complain to administrators about a professor who gives difficult exams.

Thinking of students as patients makes more sense than comparing them to customers. Students should be required to be active participants in their own education. We should make it clear that, just as doctors expect patients to take their medications and follow their therapies, educational achievement requires that students attend class, complete assignments, and think. Merely paying for an education does not ensure success. When was the last time you visited a doctor and were guaranteed good health if you simply made your co-payment, even if you ignored the doctor's advice?

Although doctors are far from perfect, in some ways they can serve as useful models for faculty members. The best doctors have good bedside manners and listen carefully to what their patients say, not just about their physical symptoms, but about related mental or emotional problems; they prescribe not just medicine but a healthy diet, or perhaps a visit to a psychotherapist. Similarly, professors should recognize that they are not only educators but also advisers. In addition to teaching a course, they should help students select other courses and their major and degree. Naturally they need to be careful not to infringe on the student's right to choose, but their expertise can be invaluable.

A much greater level of involvement in students' academic lives may take time away from professors' research and teaching, of course. If it does, their college or university should take the importance of advising into account in making decisions about who should receive tenure and win promotions.

Treating students as patients would lead them to accept additional responsibilities. They would need to discuss their academic progress with advisers on a regular basis, much like a medical checkup. In turn, professors would need to share their assessment of a student with their colleagues and, when necessary, refer students to support services like tutors or writing instructors.

Having taken more control over their own enlightenment in college, students would be more likely to succeed in later life -- and to engage in lifelong learning. Faculty members would also continue to learn, seeing that education, like medicine, is a practice that involves continuous experimentation and questioning.

I am not suggesting lengthy training sessions for professors, led by outside experts. We simply need to recognize that students and professors must share responsibility for education. Any paradigmlike academe's view of the student as customer -- that places a majority of the responsibility for success on one side alone is doomed to failure, just like treating a disease without the participation of both doctor and patient.

Phillip H. Shelley is dean of the graduate school at Eastern New Mexico University.