The contested product of a university education.

The disclosure in 2006 by Oxford's Conference of Colleges that it would require newly matriculated students to sign a student-college contract is the latest evidence of the tendency to reduce the university-student relationship to one of contract. It also points to the reinvention of the university in the context of a disaggregated and individualised wider community. Alienation from self and from community is reinforced by the standardised persona assumed in economic interaction and now transforming social interaction. This is a fundamental paradigm shift that requires a radical rethink of the new university as a community. This paper will trace the transformation of the student from a status relationship, in which the student is a member of a university community, to one in which the student is a client of the university. This process involves the denaturing of the students and, through them, the university. The consequences of such a process can be considered at the level of the student's engagement with the university and the studies undertaken there. This paper will consider, in particular, the ramifications of an 'actuarial' mentality adopted by students to assess the 'economic choices' available to them in their higher education, by which they hope to manage their future and insure against risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]