How are students the products now? We only get paid when they are successful, that doesn’t mean they’re not the customer.

The service we provide is helping them into a good job, so of course hiring companies are stakeholders, but companies are the customers.

The university has an incentive to value your early salary _above all else_. This may be dangerous (hence my question). The article clearly shows some potential issues by pointing to several very useful but not very well paid profession (eg: nurses) who will have trouble finding lessons in this model.

Closer to our trade you might see stuff like :

- We don't offer design lessons because backend developers earn more than designers, so go study Rust, it's so hot right now !

- Marketing ? Heck no, salaries are only soaring later in your career, we can't get break even with that

- Your idea of a quantum computing course seems interesting but we don't believe there is a big enough market for people in that field at the moment, it's more of a research subject right now (weather that's true or false is up to the reader to decide).

- ...

Since the university is exclusively paid by your future salary, every second that you spend in class must be immediately translated in extra $$$ in you first compensation package. If your goal is to make as much money as soon as you get out of school, your incentive are aligned. Otherwise they are not, and that can be dangerous. Steve Jobs is a notorious example of someone who took some lessons that did not seem really useful not so high profile at the time, and only later proved to be critical in his success.

At a much smaller scale, 7 years after graduating, I am rediscovering some skill/knowledge I acquired at uni that did not seem to matter a lot when I started working (and that definitely were not taken into account in my first job interviews). I believe they makes me a better/more productive engineer. I fear that under that new system I might have never learned them in favour of something hotter and more marketable.

It's not dangerous, not nearly to the extent you're making it out to be.

How does changing the paying method change the roles in the transaction? At worst (eg financing a car or house) it adds a new role, but customer remains the same.

If there's an issue, it seems to me it's the fact that students shouldn't be treatef like customers, specially by the State.

How will you ensure that your private interest are aligned with individuals, and society needs

How is the current system achieving that?