Scholars have documented the ways in which the influence of neoliberal ideology, and particularly the extension of free-market logic, has resulted in meaningful changes within colleges and universities in the United States. However, largely omitted from these discussions is the impact of neoliberal ideology on college students. Concurrent with the discussion concerning neoliberalism and higher education, a separate dialogue focusing on the rise of the conceptualization of students as customers has been occurring amongst higher education scholars. Such an understanding of college students is consistent with free-market logic, as the relationship between students and their institutions become defined in economic terms. While many scholars have lamented about the rise of this new approach towards education, few have connected it with larger changes in higher education or with the influence of neoliberal ideology. More importantly, researchers have yet to measure reliably the extent to which students actually express a customer orientation. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide the first measure of a customer orientation, and in the process help describe the impact neoliberal ideology, and freemarket logic in particular, has had on college students.

In 2011 Sweden introduced tuition fees for citizens of countries outside the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, choosing to study at Swedish universities. The purpose of this thesis has been to explore how institutions of higher education in Sweden has adapted to this change by studying the case of Lund University. Within Lund University we have studied both centrally placed functions and functions at the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Social Sciences, namely Graduate School. We have performed interviews with teachers as well as administrative staff on different levels. Our study is centred around organization pertaining to marketing and recruitment towards fee-paying students as well as services for fee-paying students during their time of study at Lund University. We have also been interested in finding out whether the relation between the university and the students has changed during the time passed and if there has been any adaptations of the offered education. Our study shows that the tuition fees contributed to a more focused attention on international marketing, the development of new practices within communication and service to international students and the creation of a wider range of international educational programmes. We have also found that administrative staff within the university, to a certain extent, think about students in terms of customers. / År 2011 infördes studieavgifter för studenter från tredjeland som valde att studera vid universitetet och högskolor Sverige. Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att utforska hur lärosäten i Sverige anpassat sig till denna förändring genom att studera fallet Lunds universitet. Inom Lunds universitet har vi studerat funktioner både centralt och på fakultetsnivå, vi har genomfört intervjuer med lärare samt med personer på olika nivåer inom administrationen. Vi har inkluderat både Lunds Tekniska Högskola, LTH, och Graduate School som driver ett antal internationella mastersprogram vid den Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten. I vår studie har vi fokuserat på̊ organisering som berör rekrytering av och marknadsföring mot betalande studenter till universitetet samt servicefunktioner riktade till betalande studenter under studietiden. Vi har även utforskat om relationen till studenterna har förändrats samt om det skett en anpassning av utbildningsutbudet. Vår studie visar att studieavgiftsreformen bidrog till ett ökat fokus på internationell marknadsföring och positionering, att nya praktiker inom kommunikation och service till internationella studenter utvecklats samt att antalet program med internationell rekrytering utökats. Studien visar även att tjänstemän inom universitetet i viss utsträckning tänker på studenter i termer av kunder.