Read: LPC 23: Helping students to get the best out of university
A groundbreaking report which assesses what students need to get the best out of their university experience was the focus of an event hosted by Staffordshire University and the Purpose Coalition today, on the first day of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
Student Success: What do students need to survive and thrive at university? featured panel members Rt Hon Justine Greening, Chair of the Purpose Coalition and former Education Secretary, Professor Martin Jones, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Staffordshire University and Nick Forbes CBE, Engagement Director at the Purpose Coalition.
Panel members and audience held a lively discussion on the recently launched pilot study by Staffordshire University and the Purpose Coalition, Developing a UK Measure of Students’ Basic Needs, which has collected a range of data on students’ needs on campus. The report’s authors hope that Its findings will provide an evidence base to help shape meaningful interventions and effective support services for students which can also be used by other universities.
The cost-of-living crisis has thrown the challenges faced by university students into sharp focus, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Higher rents, heating costs and food bills are forcing many of them to work longer hours in part-time jobs. They have less time to concentrate on their academic studies or on socialising and leisure activities – all vital parts of a rounded student experience. Financial pressures are putting many from less well-off backgrounds from going to university at all.
The report’s findings reflect these challenges, with 93% of students worried about the cost-of-living and with one in three ‘only just coping’. Nearly two thirds have gone without food when they were hungry at least once in the last year. Many experience poor quality housing, with a quarter reporting moving home between three and five times within a single year. Seven in ten had reduced their social activities due to financial constraints, with two thirds having to ask family or friends to help cover food costs or bills.
Many universities are seeing first-hand the effect of these learner insecurities on students’ engagement. Not only do they affect their experience and achievement at university but they can also produce wider impacts, for example on mental ill-health and poor wellbeing, which can have long-lasting effects beyond their university years and can prove to be significant barriers to opportunity.
There is intense debate at the moment on the value of a university degree and on the investment it requires from students and from our higher education institutions. Universities play a key role in promoting opportunity in this country, acting as anchor institutions in their communities. There needs to be a much clearer focus on what is needed to support an individual so that they can get the very best out of their university experience to ensure that higher education is as transformative as it should be.
