That certainly would be true within the public education (primary, secondary) system, where the government is the customer. Hence why attendance is mandated. However, typically college level students are initiating and fulfilling the transaction, thus they are the customer. They offer up money in exchange for keeping arbitrary social pressures at bay. In rare cases they offer money in exchange for learning things.
It is possible for the customer to also be the product. Especially in the age of salable data, that is becoming more and more common. However, when that is the case there is incentives given to the customers to shape them into what selling them as a product requires. In context here, that would mean something like giving discounts to those who don't cheat, which I am not familiar with any college doing, so... That brings us back to why would a vendor get emotional about the customer not using the product as intended?
It is possible for the customer to also be the product. Especially in the age of salable data, that is becoming more and more common. However, when that is the case there is incentives given to the customers to shape them into what selling them as a product requires. In context here, that would mean something like giving discounts to those who don't cheat, which I am not familiar with any college doing, so... That brings us back to why would a vendor get emotional about the customer not using the product as intended?