I think the muddling of roles is what bothers me about it. In a workplace, the responsibility is reversed. You're the opposite of a customer - you're an employee.

Here, customers (and honestly, what they are getting vs. what they are paying for is so bad in my opinion it borders on fraud, so even using the term customer here is being generous) are treated like employees.

> I think the muddling of roles is what bothers me about it.

But the “it” you’re bothered by here is a hypothetical scenario, proposed by you, in which the university mandates that students consent to the university managing their personal devices, which nobody has suggested and which even you concede isn’t likely to happen.

Nope - it happens in several other ways that I've described in my posts. It just hasn't happened in this space yet.

My mistake, though in my defense your comments do read as if you're discussing universities forcing students to allow them to manage their devices.

Your comment above is the first I'm hearing of students being forced to live in a dorm, join a meal plan, or abstain from alcohol, excepting religious institutions. If those things are really happening at public universities I'd agree that's an overreach.