Funding will be driven by student choice: the genealogical development of a consumer metaphor in Australian higher education policy

A student-as-consumer metaphor is often presented as dominating how students are understood in higher education, despite being widely criticised as having detrimental effects. This research examines the place of a student-as-consumer metaphor in Australian higher education policy. Through a genealogical examination of 14 Australian higher education policy documents from 1957 to 2019, a consumer metaphor is shown to have entered the policy discourse because it was the form of understanding most suited to how higher education in Australia was problematised. As governments became unwilling to provide funding, universities adopted business practices in order to seek alternative sources of income. A consumer metaphor develops within this context, as students became understood as a prime source of such income, showing that a consumer metaphor is not inevitable or inherent to higher education policy and opening up space for further critique and for new understandings to emerge. This article concludes with a discussion of how a consumer metaphor interacts with the stated aims of Australian higher education policy, and examines a range of alternative understandings that may be better suited to achieving these policy aims.