Category: Commuter students

How cost of living is influencing UK student mobility

Drive along any motorway in September and you will see car after car full of duvets, pots and pans, and clothes as students head off to pastures new. I remember my own experience, crossing the Severn Bridge with the bedding on the front seat of my Fiesta muffling Oasis’ Definitely Maybe.

This stereotypical view of a literal journey into higher education isn’t the case for everyone, however. In fact, far more students live at home during their studies than you may think.

The UCAS application asks students about whether they intend to live at home. In 2024, 30 per cent of UK 18-year-olds said they planned to live at home during their studies – up from 25 per cent in 2019 and just 21 per cent in 2015.

However, when we look beyond the headline numbers, over half of the most disadvantaged students (IMD Q1) live at home during their studies, compared to fewer than one in five of the least disadvantaged (IMD Q5). Regional distribution will have an impact here, particularly London.

Scottish students are more likely to live at home during their studies. On a recent visit to Edinburgh, all the students I met spoke with excitement about their plans to study at their chosen university within the city. By contrast, Welsh domiciled students are the least likely to live at home during their studies.

In London, 52 per cent of 18-year-olds progress to HE – with around half of those students staying in London, making it unsurprising that the capital sees the highest proportion of live at home students in England.

Cost of living pressures

Cost of living is undoubtedly influencing student choice. At the January equal consideration deadline, UCAS saw a 2.1 per cent increase in the number of UK 18-year-old applicants – a record high. However, regular readers of Wonkhe will know this also represents a decline in the application rate – the proportion of the 18-year-old population applying to HE, and UCAS insight increasingly points to the cost of living playing a role.

Our latest survey insight suggests that 43 per cent of pre-applicants feel they are less likely to progress to HE due to cost-of-living pressures, up from 24 per cent in 2023 – although their commitment to going to university remains high.

Financial support is also of growing importance to students when it comes to deciding where to study. While finding the perfect course content was the most important factor when shortlisting universities (49 per cent), the financial support available while studying (such as a scholarship or bursary) was a close second (46 per cent). Specific cost-of-living support offered by universities was third (34 per cent).

The availability of support with the cost of living has risen in relative importance as a factor when shortlisting universities from 12th in 2022 to 3rd in 2024 – a significant shift, which suggests a change in student mindset. There have also been large changes in rank importance of “universities that are close to home” from 9th to 4th, “universities with low-cost accommodation” from 13th to 7th and “universities I can attend but still live with my parents” from 16th to 11th.

Source: Potential applicants for 2025 entry, 1,023 UK respondents, Dec 2024–Jan 2025

It isn’t just at the point of application where we see the cost of living impacting choice. In 2024, UCAS saw 43,000 students decline the place they were holding in favour of an alternative institution or subject – making this the largest group of students using Clearing.

This is not a spur of the moment decision, with 52 per cent having already decided to do this prior to receiving their results and a further one in five considering it based on their results.

When asked what drove their decision, 23 per cent told us they had a change in personal circumstances and 17 per cent wanted to live somewhere cheaper. We also know this impacts on all cohorts of students – 19 per cent of international students that don’t accept a university offer through UCAS tell us they have found a more attractive financial offer elsewhere.

However, the primary reason that students use Decline My Place is linked to the course, with 31 per cent changing their mind about the subject they wish to study.

Support measures

It’s clear that cost of living and financial support is a key factor influencing student choice and so we must ensure this information is easily accessible and understood by students.

Students tell us they’d like more practical information about student discounts, financial support packages or bursaries/scholarships. UCAS will shortly be launching a scholarships and bursary tool to promote these opportunities to students.

Around half of offer holders in 2024 recalled receiving information about cost of living support. This presents a timely opportunity for any university staff working in marketing, recruitment or admissions to ensure information about financial support is easy to find on their website, along with information about timetabling to help students understand how they may be able to balance work and study commitments.

There will be certain groups of students that are even more acutely impacted by cost of living challenges. Last cycle saw a record number of students in receipt of Free School Meals – 19.9 per cent – enter HE. Whilst it is only a small part of the puzzle, UCAS has removed the application fee for these students.

Cost of living pressures are likely to persist, with students continuing to assess the value of HE in this context. The sector should continue to highlight the benefits of university study as a vehicle for social mobility, along with the graduate premium – the higher earnings they typically earn compared to non-graduate peers. But we also need to make it clearer how HE of all forms remains accessible – from funds for travel to open days, to in study commuter breakfasts, hardship funds, cost of living support, and high-quality careers guidance to support graduate employability.

This article is published in association with UCAS. It forms part of our ongoing series on commuter students – you can read the whole series here.

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May 20, 2025
How commuter students show up in new access and participation plans

When the Office for Students included commuter students in the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR), it recognised the risk that commuter students may not always get the same experience as their “traditional” residential peers.

The second wave of access and participation plans (APPs) for 2025–26 to 2028–29 have slowly been published and in the wake of the EORR’s inclusion of commuter students, we’ve got a better sense of the steps providers are taking to make the experience more equitable.

Taking Universities UK’s member list as the sample and searching variations of the phrase “commuting student” in the currently available wave two APPs, 44 out of 81 APPs (at the time of writing) referred to commuter students in some form.

Sometimes this was a simple statement of demographics, for example, “over 86 per cent are commuters,” or a statement of intention – “increase… work with commuting and mature students.” Other plans detailed comprehensive work to reduce inequities with various interventions, projects and additional research to undertake.

Some plans referred to commuters broadly in a literature review but did not link this to their local contexts, and as such were not included in our analysis.

Definitions

As part of our ongoing series about commuter students, convened with Susan Kenyon at Canterbury Christ Church University, one challenge when discussing support for commuters is working out if everyone is talking about the same thing.

The EORR sets out that commuter students referred to students “based on the distance or time [students] take to travel from their accommodation to their place of study” – but it then goes on to note there are many definitions, referencing both time and distance and the fact of not having re-located for university.

In the absence of a sector-wide definition, providers have had to work this out themselves.

The majority of plans that referenced a definition identified commuters as students whose home address matches their term time address, who had been recruited locally or still lived in their family home. Some plans used a distance to identify commuters, for example 15+ miles into their main campus base. When using distance as a criteria it opens up the possibility of a commuting student also being a student who has relocated to university but lives further away due to cost and housing pressures.

As we’ve seen earlier in the series, there are differences in the experience based on those who chose to commute versus those who do so out of necessity.

St Mary’s University in Twickenham explored using the Office of the National Statistics’ Travel to Work Areas maps to define commuters and setting an average travel time of 15 minutes or more (using public transport) from a term time address. They explicitly noted they had investigated the impact of using different definitions of commuter students when analysing student outcomes which led them to identifying commuters as their sixth risk category.

When identifying commuters in APPs, ten plans went into detail about the intersecting characteristics of this demographic of students. One provider noted that “commuter students are more likely to be Asian, black or from IMD Q1+2 than non- commuter students” – this is something Kulvinder Singh looked at earlier in the series. There were several links between the association of being a commuter and being from an underrepresented group such as a mature student, carer or from a geographical area of deprivation.

One provider interrogated whether being a commuting student was a direct factor on student outcome metrics and opted that it, in fact, coincided with other risk factors.

Mind the gap

For plans that had identified a risk to the commuter student experience, a brief thematic analysis suggests continuation, completion and student outcomes metrics were most prevalent in the sample followed by cost (and transport costs) and its subsequent impact on belonging.

A lack of flexible timetabling was highlighted several times as a structural challenge for commuting students and plans honed in on the preciousness of commuters’ time.

Bridging the gap

Many universities plan to implement student centric timetables to tackle barriers to engagement and include plans to inform students as early as possible about scheduled classes. Flexible modes of learning, better communication methods and early timetables then further reduces peak-travel commuting costs, easing financial pressures.

A handful of universities offer pre-arrival events and bursaries, aimed at improving commuter student access. At Manchester Metropolitan University, for example, an introductory module to support students preparing for university was particularly valued by commuting students.

Interventions also emphasised the importance of space, with providers reviewing physical and virtual facilities, creating dedicated spaces to study and relax and improving the visibility of existing commuter spaces. The University of York’s APP suggested a provision of subsidised accommodation on campus to support commuters to engage in evening and social events.

Peer mentoring programmes, social prescribing, and the creation of commuter student networks are examples of belonging-based interventions. York St John University’s plan proposed social opportunities each month and drop-ins for commuters to be held as often as weekly on campus.

Many plans recognised a need to better understand the commuter student population. This often manifested as a commitment to engage or set up working groups and projects. Some providers viewed additional research as a first step toward supporting commuters, while others built on existing work and recognised that ongoing consultation offered the best way to deliver support.

As many of these plans have started to, counting commuters, recognising their experience is geographical and making them visible is the first step to service design with commuter students in mind. Our series has been exploring ways to support their experience through making space, pedagogy, data, shifting institutional thinking and transport agendas that may inspire providers ready to take the next step.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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May 14, 2025

Understanding the commuter student paradox

When we think about commuter students, the first thing that often comes to mind is the difficulties in balancing their studies with the demands of travel.

We frequently talk about how their lives are more challenging when compared to their peers who live nearer to campus, given the time constraints and added cost pressures they are exposed to.

However, a closer look reveals a fascinating paradox. Despite the perceived hardships, commuter students who progress with their studies can achieve better outcomes.

At the University of Lancashire, our ongoing student working lives (SWL) project, which was set up to understand the prevalence and impact of part-time work on the student experience, has started to shed light on the unique experiences of commuter students.

Our survey considers self-reported responses to questions related to students’ part-time work and university experiences, alongside linked student data to reveal a clearer picture of their non-university lives and their connection with student outcomes.

Initial data from our latest wave of the SWL project suggests that while commuter students frequently experience tighter schedules due to increased travel commitments and other out-of-class responsibilities, they can often experience better outcomes in their university and non-university lives than their non-commuter peers.

This data comes from our 2025 student working lives survey which is based on an institutional sample of 484 students, with permission to link data from 136 students.

Our research extends the recent debate around the choice versus necessity of commuting by repositioning commuters, not as left behind, but as a group of students prepared to meet the challenges laid in front of them, and in some ways, better navigating challenges and excelling in their studies.

Choose Life

The survey’s results reinforce the common belief that commuter students have busy lives.

In combination, commuter students are twice as likely to have caring responsibilities, tend to live in more deprived neighbourhoods (based on IMD quintile) and have a higher work and travel load than their non-commuting counterparts, resulting in less time to spend on study.

However, questions of necessity or choice can imply that university is the most central thing in their lives, challenging whether the assumptions we hold about commuting students have the correct premise.

Looking at our latest research, it tells us that commuters are more likely to spend longer working than non-commuter students. While an increased workload highlights the disadvantage some commuters experience, our findings reveal a more complex picture that requires a deeper dive into the lives of this student demographic.

As such, the commuter students we surveyed achieved higher attainment on average (+2pp) when linking this to university records, despite a lower self-reported rating of belonging compared to their peers.

Put bluntly, while commuting students feel slightly less attachment to the university and commit less time to study, they go on to receive better marks.

While this identifies a positive outcome for those students in our study, we should be mindful of wider research suggesting that commuter students are at greater risk of withdrawing, given the acute nature of the challenge experienced. As the study progresses we’ll continue to track further longitudinal outcomes such as continuation, completion and progression over the coming months and years.

Choose work

In our study, when understanding experiences of work, commuter students reported that they felt their work was more meaningful, more productive and more fairly paid than their non-commuter peers.

They also felt better supported at work by their colleagues and managers and felt their current job requirements and responsibilities would enhance future employment prospects. What can we take from this?

Student population	Student Working Lives – % Agree
Student population	Is your work meaningful?	Is your work productive?	Do you feel fairly paid or rewarded?	Do you feel supported by colleagues?	Do you feel supported by managers?	Do you feel your job enhances your future employment prospects?
Commuter	43.5%	53.2%	47.2%	42.7%	37.5%	41.1%
Non-Commuter	40.3%	39.8%	44.5%	38.6%	31.4%	30.9%

It’s important to state that the quality of work outcomes, despite being slightly improved for commuter students, reinforce the findings from our 2024 SWL report and last year’s HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey – students are having to work more to deal with the increased cost of living and on the whole are not experiencing what can be considered as “good” work.

However, commuter students appear to be negotiating their challenges exceptionally well and are more likely to have a job that supports their future career aspirations.

While commuter students face unique challenges, are they effectively leveraging their time and resources to excel in their studies, leading to positive outcomes in various aspects of their lives?

If so, could this add further weight to reframing the argument away from a one-dimensional deficit approach when talking about commuting students?

We already know that commuter students often have busy lives. This fuller life however, with its many facets, could give them the direction and motivation to succeed in their studies and at work.

They are not just students, they are employees, caregivers, and active members of their communities. Rather than being a deficit, these experiences can add to their educational success if they can be supported to leverage their experiences.

Choose commuting

It’s important for universities to recognise this clear paradox around commuter students. Time restrictions and commitments make things harder for commuter students to designate more time to their studies, in particular independent study that infringes on the family home.

The benefits of having more time in the workplace, having a family and traveling can enrich their student experience and outcomes.

By understanding and appreciating these unique experiences, universities can better support commuter and non-commuter students alike.

At the University of Lancashire, we are feeding these insights into our institutional University of the Future programme. This focuses on curriculum transformation to enhance the student learning experience, the transition to block delivery to consider the pace learning aligns with student lives, and the introduction of a short course lifelong learning model that looks to meet the changing needs of students.

Commuter students teach us that life’s challenges can also be its greatest strengths. Their ability to balance multiple responsibilities and still be able to achieve positive outcomes is a testament to their ability and determination, attributes the sector is committed to harnessing and employers are keen on developing in the workplace.

As we continue to explore and understand their experiences in developing our project over the coming months, we can start to challenge assertions and learn valuable lessons that can benefit all students and allow more to “choose life.”

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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April 23, 2025

The value of the classroom in building belonging for commuter students

As highlighted throughout the commuter student series, the significant increase in commuters across the sector is beginning to influence many institutional approaches.

These approaches have been varied but have included projects like making space for commuter students on campuses so that they can maximise their time and comfortably immerse themselves in the university experience.

However, against a backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis, a cost of learning crisis has taken hold. Given the complexities of commuter students’ lives and responsibilities and the increasing costs of commuting, the “sticky campus” model is not always a viable option as the shift to a more transactional approach is becoming more prevalent.

What educators, student-facing colleagues and decision makers need to identify is how they ensure time on campus adds value to the commuter student experience.

The classroom as central

My PhD research focuses on the experiences of ethnic minority commuter students, and how they develop their identity and sense of belonging whilst at university.

Much of the research has found that commuter students are more likely to be from ethnic minority backgrounds, have employed work and caring responsibilities and come from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Exploring the experiences of participants in my research has revealed how the experiences within the timetabled teaching classroom carries particular significance for commuter students.

This intersectionality of characteristics further emphasises the heterogenous nature of commuter students, and that speaking to, and understanding the experiences of students will help to understand how we can ensure their university experience is the best it can be.

Whilst ensuring all students develop the subject specific knowledge is considered to be top of the list of how we add value, ensuring the classroom provides a space for students to develop networks and their community is one of the ways the classroom environment can better support commuters.

Commuter students are struggling to adapt to pedagogies and policies that are typically designed for students who have relocated. This has started to come to the fore in the responses from students who are perceiving significant value of their experience in the approaches adopted within the classroom.

Findings from my research signify that a sense of belonging is felt by commuter students, both at a course and institutional level, and that sense of belonging is very much driven by the experiences they have in the classroom.

Finding space to belong

To develop this sense of belonging, students often mentioned the importance of space and time.

They spoke about the need to have space and time within their timetabled session to catch up with peers, have the time to speak to academic and professional services teams face to face and to ensure that classroom activities link to the outcomes they are hoping to achieve. To assist in facilitating this, consideration around how taught sessions are delivered, building space into weekly module delivery to maximise the potential for students to get the most out of their time on campus can develop and help foster this sense of belonging and community.

Commuters are constantly making cost-benefit calculations, tying with the transactional approach to education. And the richness of these connections, however short and sporadic, can provide valuable outcomes and develop this sense of community.

Not participating in activities outside of the classroom is not perceived as negatively impacting on their experience, and nor does the act of commuting always limit their ability to engage in activities, but there is an opportunity cost that is often considered.

Differing approaches amongst tutors can impact on the experience students encounter, and the findings from my research signify a correlation between those classroom encounters and the sense of belonging for commuter students.

Identity searching

The institutional identity is also particularly relevant given that the students who are commuting are likely to live within the region, and this further develops the potential affinity they have with their institution.

My research speaks to the importance of commuter students’ feelings of “we are all getting the same experience and opportunity” in ensuring they are not left feeling disadvantaged.

This is not to suggest that engaging in activities outside of the classroom are not of value to commuter students, the benefits of engaging in extra-curricular activities is often considerable to the majority of students. The holistic experience of being in university should, however, support in developing the capital of commuter students.

The classroom should be a space where all students enjoy the learning opportunities that higher education offers, providing the platform on which the student experience is built.

For commuter students in particular, this space and environment is becoming increasingly important in their overall journey.

And if we are to ensure an equitable experience for all students, providing a classroom experience which not only focusses on subject content, but provides time and space for interaction and the building of individual identity and community can help support this journey.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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April 11, 2025
Building a public transport agenda for commuter students

If you have been to Greater Manchester in the last few years, you will have noticed that more and more yellow buses have started to appear.

The Bee Network fully launched across the region on the 5^th January 2025 – the yellow bus takeover is now complete.

When all buses in the region became a part of the Bee Network – the integrated transport network for Greater Manchester – this was a significant moment for the city’s devolution journey. It became the first place in England, outside of London, to have buses back under public control.

One of the Greater Manchester Student Partnership’s (GMSP) priorities is to improve students’ experience of transport across the region, the launch of the Bee Network is a key opportunity to make that happen.

Institutions often define commuters differently and in Greater Manchester we already have a large proportion of students “traditionally” commuting. However traditional residential students are living further away from campus due to rising costs and are more reliant on public transport to get to classes.

The GMSP has been thinking about how we can use the Greater Manchester Combined Authorities’ powers to support commuter students in their widest of definitions.

A backdrop of devolution

Since the coalition government of the early 2010s, devolution has been growing and Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have been the guinea pigs of the plan.

Putting buses back under public control was a large part of the devolution deals and settlements, with the Bus Service Act 2017 being introduced so regions can take back control of buses.

For context, in the 1980s bus travel in the UK was deregulated – anyone with a licence and a bus could run any bus service they wanted. The act allows Metro Mayors and in the future local authorities to franchise bus services. In doing so they can set up routes, tickets and costs for bus operators to bid for.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, got the ball rolling on this quickly.

In the 2024 general election, Labour had promised more devolved powers for regional mayors that have already been elected. In December, the government announced the Better Buses Bill which will give more powers to local authorities to own their own bus companies.

Students use buses to get around their city but commuter students are not just reliant on buses, they are also reliant on trams and trains and other forms of transport.

Building a student city

The new bus fare cap rising will be a further strain on student cost of living and inevitably impact on student engagement on campus – for traditional commuters and residential students. The benefits of a mayor and devolved transport powers mean that isn’t the case here, fares are staying put at £2.

As of last month, if you “tap in” on the tram and the bus with your contactless card, it all falls under the same ticket.

This again is welcomed by GMSP, but this does not reduce the price of students who have to travel on both modes of public transport.

This improves accessibility but not necessarily affordability.

If they take multiple journeys a week on both a tram and a bus, it will cost £41. There is currently no student rate on trams or on the “tap in” system that is about to be introduced.

From December 2026 until December 2028, the Bee Network will gain control of eight major commuter train lines. Greater Manchester could then become the best city for student public transport in the country, but only if Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), universities and student unions work together.

Busy making promises

The GMSP has been advocating for cheaper, more reliable transport with the mayor and TfGM.

In 2022, officers from GMSP wrote to the mayor asking for a £1.50 bus single for all students. The mayor responded by saying that although he wanted to do something like this, until he had full control on the Bee Network, that would not be possible.

In the mayor’s 2024 mayoral election manifesto, he announced at a mayoral hustings for students that he was to introduce a 18-21 monthly half price bus pass, bringing down the cost from £80 to £40.

This was welcomed by GMSP to an extent, but we recognised that a lot of students, especially commuter students, do not fall into this category. And termly student tickets that are already on offer would work out cheaper for most students anyway.

Since the Bee Network fully launched, we have seen no sign of this offer appearing.

Student transport agenda

The big question is, how can the universities, student unions and transport authorities work together to make life better for commuter students?

Whilst we’re lucky in Greater Manchester to have a forum to meet with and discuss things like patronage, pricing and safety, getting all partners into the room is not as easy.

We have big plans to make Greater Manchester the best place to be a student, and to do that we need to think big with things like creating a student living and staying strategy for the city region.

This would bring together all these partners to create a long-term strategy for students in the city region, with one of themes being transport. Having these three partners working together is key for the success of any long-term transport strategy in the region.

TfGM holds a lot of the power, including data on patronage and which routes students are using the most. Universities hold influence and potential financial influence, which could be beneficial for introducing new routes and discounting prices for students.

Universities have a lot of data about students, especially on where they live, and that information could be used to target key routes for commuter students. And student unions are important as the voice of students.

One of the mayor’s key aims for students in Greater Manchester is retaining talent. An element of this is making the Greater Manchester universities more attractive for potential students from Greater Manchester. If you want to make local universities more desirable for commuter students, improving the reliability, access and price of transport would go a very long way.

Whilst Greater Manchester has a unique opportunity to improve the commuter student experience, more devolution is on its way. In the meantime, the more connections and collaborations that exist between local authorities, universities, student unions and transport providers, the better.

Collaboration is key to making these ideas a reality and in building transport strategies in university towns and cities, commuter students need to be at the heart of decision making.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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April 4, 2025
The difference between commuting by choice versus necessity

Plenty has been written in the last few years that discusses the way the pandemic and the cost-of-living and housing crisis have driven the rise in commuter students across the sector.

And as the commuter student series has demonstrated, universities and student unions can take steps to better meet the needs of this community.

We know they are less engaged, more financially constrained, exhausted, and more likely to have lower degree outcomes compared to campus students.

And yet despite knowing all of this, it sometimes feels like we are circling the drain when it comes to implementing better policies for commuter students.

And part of the issue is that we are still framing students’ decision to commute as a choice rather than a necessity when it comes to decision making.

While some may argue this is semantics and that the two words are interchangeable, the difference in experience between choice commuters and necessity commuters is something to interrogate.

Spot the difference

Last year, I read the Blackbullion Student Money & Wellbeing 2024 report and for students who identified themselves as commuters they were asked, “Is this by choice or a necessity?”

319 students identified by choice and 234 by necessity.

While the difference in word choice might seem minor, the data presented throughout the report revealed their experiences were in fact quite different.

For example, non-commuter students need about £577 a month more than what they currently have compared to £671 for commuters by choice and £782 for commuters due to necessity.

Recognising these financial differences as well as others could help universities provide more targeted support.

Things like commuter friendly timetables, better event planning and reducing hidden course costs benefit all students, but it could also potentially provide a noticeable financial reprieve for those who commute due to necessity.

To better support different student groups the sector needs a deeper understanding of the nuances within their student population and the impact on attendance, engagement, and belonging in order to design effective interventions.

Our commuters

At Royal Holloway, 40 per cent of our students are commuters.

And this year the students’ union is running a policy inquiry to examine their academic experience, seeking feedback from current commuter students through online surveys and qualitative activities like a paid in-person focus group and a journaling activity.

We followed Blackbullion’s lead and asked students whether they commuted by choice or necessity in our term one online survey which received 654 responses.

58 per cent of respondents identified as necessity commuters, 39 per cent were choice commuters and three per cent preferred not to say.

The patterns across year groups revealed undergraduates in earlier year groups were more likely to commute by choice while late-year undergraduate and postgraduate students commuted due to necessity.

When asked to explain in more detail why they commuted, the top reasons given were often financially motivated around expensive accommodation, the cost-of-living crisis, not wanting to take out a maintenance loan, and the fact they could not justify the expense of living out when they had close transport links to the university.

Sticky campus

We also wanted to better understand commuter travel patterns.

Looking at the data we learned that 72 per cent of overall commuters come to campus only on the days they have teaching, 17 per cent come to campus more days than they have scheduled teaching and 11 per cent come less days than they have teaching.

Within the 17 per cent who come to campus more days, 63 per cent of those students are commuters by necessity compared to 33 per cent of commuters by choice.

Despite extending their time on campus, 60 per cent of necessity commuters reported that their commute negatively impacts their ability to socialise with other students compared to about 41 per cent of commuters by choice who felt this way.

In terms of forming friendships, commuters by choice felt more positively with 67 per cent feeling they have had good opportunities to form friendships and foster a sense of belonging within the student community versus 55 per cent of commuters by necessity.

These differences extend into their academic socialisation, and 55 per cent of choice commuters agreed to an extent they felt part of an academic community compared to 48 per cent of necessity commuters.

Our survey highlighted that managing their studies was a major barrier which impacted daytime socialisation for commuter students. 85 per cent of choice commuters stated they found their workload manageable versus 72 per cent of necessity commuters.

A high proportion of respondents indicated they manage their workload, but they compensate by studying during their commutes or teaching breaks, limiting their time to socialise.

Taking all of this into account it is no surprise that necessity commuters were more likely to report their commute affects their physical or mental well-being at 37 per cent compared to 17 per cent of choice commuters.

Where do we go from here?

When it comes to commuting by choice or by necessity, necessity commuters face greater financial, academic and social challenges.

Once universities and students’ unions reframe their thinking around commuting as a necessity rather than a choice, they can create more targeted support to support this community.

Things that might alleviate the pressures commuters face include commuter-friendly timetables, hybrid teaching options, travel bursaries or affordable overnight accommodation options to reduce exam stress or attendance at late-night events.

We also need to reach out and ask what types of commuter-friendly events and initiatives they would like and what would work for them to build better social inclusion on their terms.

Right now, commuter students feel left behind and invisible when they’re on campus. But we can change this narrative if we rethink our perception of this community and create more targeted policies to support them across their student journey by first understanding the nuance.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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March 28, 2025
Reframing the commute | Wonkhe

Way back in 2019, the Augar review stated that students living away from home for university was part of a “deep-seated culture.”

By extension, it inferred that living at home – in whatever home looks like for an individual – was abnormal or uncommon.

Six years on and it really feels like this narrative is changing. Whilst I’ve written on the site before about the sector being at cross purposes when talking about the student group, the acknowledgement and discussion of commuter students and their experiences is on the increase.

As Wonkhe’s commuter student series has demonstrated, there are many students, scholars, policy makers and practitioners doing some excellent work to highlight the challenges faced by commuter students in higher education.

Whilst the narrative might be changing, what is less discussed is some of the benefits of commuting for students.

In my PhD research whilst students spoke of long and difficult journeys, struggling to park on campus or counterintuitive academic timetabling, they also spoke about the positives of their experiences. It’s these that I think are an important starting point for those looking to know more about this student group.

Challenging the narrative

Simply put, not all students want to live in student accommodation. Some prefer to live with family. Mature students don’t necessarily want to live with younger students or uproot their family units into family accommodation options.

For those who have been in full-time employment to starting their studies, they saw the commute as just part of a working day.

One of the students in my study specifically told me that they didn’t expect their institution to do anything special for them as a commuter because commuting was just “what you do” in order to get to class.

For the wider student experience, a number of students in my research participated in multiple extra-curricular activities and had numerous friends they’d met through these, as well as on their commute or on their course. One commuter even elected to get a rail replacement bus at a weekend to participate in their sports club. Anyone who has ever taken a rail replacement bus will know that this isn’t a decision taken lightly.

In all these instances, commuter students demonstrated either the positive benefits of commuting, or that they were able to participate in university life irrespective of their commute.

I’m not trying to say that all commuter student experiences are positive. Unless you hold an amount of luck, you’re going to be late to class at some point due to some kind of transport issue. We’ve all been there, stood waiting for a bus that doesn’t turn up or a train that’s delayed. It’s frustrating and sometimes (read, often) it makes you late to class.

What I am saying is that this deficit narrative of commuter students often does them a bit of a disservice and ends up homogenising their experiences in a way that isn’t always that useful if we’re trying to think about how to improve their experience.

It’s not you, it’s me

Instead of thinking about the commuter student, we might want to consider thinking about the institution itself.

After all, when we’re framing commuter student experiences what we’re really doing is talking about how they fit in with the institutional structures that frame their university life.

For one of the commuters I spent time with, delays to their journey were frequent even when allowing plenty of time for their journey. What is of interest though was what happened next.

One of their class tutors routinely employed the institutions’ academic attendance policy. The policy stated that if a student arrived later than 15 minutes after the class had started, they’d be marked as absent. This meant that a couple of times, whilst they’d informed this staff member via email in advance that they’d be late and did physically make it to their class, they were still marked absent because they arrived 15 minutes late.

In contrast another tutor, acknowledging that this student had emailed them warning of their late attendance, allowed them to sign the register when they arrived.

Institutions can have one attendance policy but have staff enact it in different ways. If you’re a commuter student who’s had an awful journey to get to class, it’s not ideal when you’re not sure how your class tutor might respond.

This particular student had been previously recommended by their tutor that they should factor more time into their journey to arrive on time. This student, along with many others in my study, were already factoring in extra time in their journeys.

You can also see why there might be some disgruntlement between students here. If you’ve done the same journey as someone else on your course who has a different module tutor, you’d be annoyed to find out that they let them sign the register yet your tutor marked you as absent. Experiences like these then can lead to differing expectations between students and the institution which could develop into some pretty bad feeling.

Great expectations

I suggest it’s a question here around what the institution deems a reasonable expectation of its students, and by extension whether or not the institutional structures are suitably flexible enough to accommodate any fluctuations within these.

If the above example here is anything to go by, it’s likely that what’s considered as a reasonable expectation of commuter students will differ between students, institutional policies and ultimately the staff that enact them.

Where students spoke to me about commuting to university in more positive terms, it was often relating to how their expectations of university had matched their reality. This could be down to the individual themselves. For example, where students had researched their commute or done a commute to work prior to starting their degree they took things like disruptions to travel as simply part of life as a commuter student.

But if the expectations that were being asked of students had changed. For example, being taught by different academic staff with different stances on attendance, or these experiences were not clear between the institution and the student to begin with, this negative narrative could often arise as a result.

Being a commuter student is not mutually exclusive to having a poor student experience. But if we want to hear more about the positive experiences of commuter students, we need to think about why they’re positive and consider how our institutions can enhance these experiences further.

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March 19, 2025
Making space for commuter students

Residential living at university has been prevalent since the 15^th Century, originally as a way to instil discipline and promote a moral education amongst students.

University College London’s founding in the 1820s as the first non-residential UK university disrupted this tradition. However, debates around the correct model of living have continued ever since.

The Robbins Report in 1963 described the “educational and social advantages of living away from home” and it was often understood that the desire to live in halls was to emulate the “Oxbridge ideal.”

The rise of 1960s plate glass universities, with new on-campus halls led the way for the expected “way of being” for university students.

As recently as 2019 the Augar Report stated “leaving home to go to university is a deep-seated part of the English culture.”

Clearly not much has changed.

Across my time as a student and working in higher education, it was always apparent that space is crucial to the student experience for commuter students where they don’t have a residence on campus.

Whilst the debate around commuter students has shifted in recent years with the introduction of commuters into the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register, more holistic support is needed.

In fact, making space for commuter students is not just about their teaching and learning but it’s also about accommodating their extracurriculars and social lives.

As rising numbers of commuter students challenge the historical ideas of what students should look like, how can institutions make space for commuters on campus?

The rest of the student experience

Arriving at university, it became clear I was one of two commuter students in my cohort of around 200 and that this was going to create problems for me.

The extra curricular student experience was defined by student society socials and trips, socialising in halls and consuming alcohol on nights out.

It was awkward when the first question I’d always get asked in first year was “what halls are you in?”

Skip forward to my final year dissertation, I investigated the barriers to social engagement for commuter students at Leeds University.

My research findings from six interviews with current commuter students found participation in social activities was difficult for many for financial, transport, religious and other reasons.

We respectively think a lot about supporting commuter students’ experience of teaching and learning on and off campus but the student experience isn’t just limited to the classroom.

Issues included last trains home being too early, spaces of engagement centred around halls, hidden costs to participate such as additional meals or transport and hygiene barriers (sleeping on sofas and not having their toiletries).

Commuter students have often been invisible in the way institutions treated them, and we struggled to find each other due to the stigma, with constant questioning by peers “don’t you feel like you’re missing out?”

Rush hour socials

As a student, finding people to support the creation of the Leeds University Commuters’ Society was challenging.

From my own experiences of imposter syndrome and othering, it was essential to create a society to address the needs of this group and advocate for further inclusion.

I founded the Leeds University Commuters’ Society to find others with shared experiences, to share travel tips, support wellbeing and hold “rush hour” socials.

Through my dissertation research, I also explored commuter students’ sense of belonging. I found commuter students who worked for the university in part-time roles, such as ambassadors, had a stronger sense of belonging and pride. The society also boosted feelings of belonging for the students, and some had found lifelong friends on their course who they didn’t realise were commuter students.

Finding space

The pandemic shifted working patterns for many staff, plus the opening of a new building on campus freed up space. The society campaigned for a common lounge for commuter students.

The Student Ideas Fund granted us £5000 to create the lounge, originally on a two-year pilot basis. The lounge contains a refurbished social area with a games table, TV, kitchen, lockers and private study space.

The kitchen offers students the opportunity to save money on lunches and evening meals, as students previously relied on eating out or consuming to feel comfortable in a cafe.

The lounge is now a permanent feature of campus and is visited on campus tours and mentioned at open days.

Where there’s space in residential halls, the University of Leeds team are consulting with commuter students about opening a commuter hotel, offering stays between 1-14 nights, at budget prices.

Commuter students would then be able to participate in a range of activities like attending society socials, concerts, theatre, sports events, and staying the night before a morning exam.

By giving commuter students a space, either a common room, lounge or even a temporary bed for a night in a hotel, it gives them autonomy and agency to fully participate in the wider student experience.

They can participate in the things that make university enriching without being at a disadvantage.

The narrative around commuter students has shifted significantly since the Robbins and Augar report with commuters being included in more Access and Participation Plans in England. However, cost of living pressures are pushing even more students to consider commuting and more still needs to be done.

Making spaces on campus for commuter students is one way of enabling them to have a more enriching and wide-reaching student experience.

Institutions could find spare spaces to give to commuter societies, advertise them as commuter lounges or utilise spare rooms to offer short stays for commuter students. Above all, listening to what commuter students want is the best way of including and further supporting this group.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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March 12, 2025
Which universities recruit commuter students?

It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but in general commuter students (whatever definition you are using) tend to be those who lived locally before they became students.

It’s an intersection – if you are recruiting locally (upskilling your local area) you are most likely to be recruiting students who are already living in the local area and will choose something other than the traditional on campus experience.

As institutional recruitment strategies change over the years, so will the makeup of your student body. Policy pressures, and – frankly – the need to reach underserved groups for more pragmatic financial reasons mean that more people are able to consider higher education in some form.

This is going to include stuff like sub-degree qualifications, provision aimed at mature students who want to upskill or re-skill mid-career, and more vocational qualifications that link in to the needs of particular local employers.

State of the data

There’s been various research reports (most notably from the Sutton Trust) that have used custom slices of HESA or UCAS data to identify commuter students. Until now it’s been quite difficult to replicate these analyses with public data, but the invention of HESA student table 62 and some nifty spatial updates from the good people at Tableau allows us to get fairly sophisticated with public data.

Here I’ve allowed you to make your own determination of what constitutes a local student based on the number of miles from your university’s main campus – you can select a provider of interest with the filter at the top, and then zero in on modes and levels of study of interest.

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The map will show you which local authorities are in scope (marked in pink) – the students that hail from those pink areas are shown in the bar chart at the side for each year, and the proportion of all students (at that provider with the level and mode as selected) is marked on the bars.

It’s far from perfect – one particular issue comes with the use of local authorities (as of late 2023, local democracy fans) as the unit of analysis. Because I can’t tell you where in, say, Somerset, a particular student lives we have to use the distance from the central point of the local authority in question. This is fine for your smaller council areas, but for big rural districts it causes problems.

Another issue will be the population of each area. There’s loads of potential students in Birmingham or London, perhaps less in Northumberland or Devon. If your main campus is nearer the former than the latter, your figures are going to be flattered.

If not you then who?

If local students aren’t going to your provider, where are they going? I have a chart for that too – select your local authority district at the top, and the rest of the controls work as normal. In general local students do study locally – but there are exceptions.

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The inevitable ranking

So – which providers have a low proportion of students from their local area? If you look at full time undergraduate recruitments the winners tend to (as above) be London-based or northern civic universities with strong links to the local area. Bath (especially, with two providers represented at the bottom end) and the wider south west are more likely to see students leave the area to study, and specialist providers are less likely to recruit locally than larger providers offering more courses in more areas.

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Though a first thought might see commuter students (and local recruitment) as an issue that doesn’t figure in the plans of our more prestigious providers, the reality is complex and pays no heed to your REF results. There are areas of the country where people tend to study locally – there are providers that are particularly good at recruiting what are likely to be their own recently qualified undergraduates on to masters courses. And large cities like London and Birmingham have their own specific gravity. In other words you almost certainly have students who commute – and thus have a very different experience of higher education to their peers – at your provider. And you need to offer them support.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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March 12, 2025
Supporting commuter students with the right information

Commuter student support takes different forms, from student lounges to travel bursaries.

However, when it comes to something as simple as the information that universities provide to prospective students and current students, it remains stubbornly focused on traditional, residential students.

As a result, commuters make untenable choices at the applicant stage, find student life difficult to navigate and feel a profound lack of belonging, throughout their student experience.

Getting it right at the start is as important as throughout.

What information is out there

In our research, which we are currently preparing for publication, we talked to commuter students and uncovered the practical impacts of a lack of information. Students suggested that their choice of institution, choice of course and the choice either to commute or relocate may have been different, if they had known about the personal, financial and educational impacts of commuting.

They didn’t just talk about travel information – bus routes, train times, car parking – which is still important and largely missing from university webpages and prospectuses. They focused more on their need for information to help them to navigate life as a student who commutes.

Commuter students told us that this absence of information suggested to them that universities don’t see commuters, leading them to feel that they don’t belong and they don’t matter.

The hidden curriculum

Our findings suggest that commuters need information in two areas, “rules of the game” and “sense of belonging.”

These are the terms developed by Dr Katharine Hubbard and colleagues to describe the two domains of the “hidden curriculum” that universities must make explicit, if non-traditional students are to succeed at university.

Our research sought to address this hidden curriculum for commuter students by developing best practice guidance for information that universities should provide to support commuters in their choices, transition and day-to-day university experience.

We randomly selected 30 universities from the 147 institutions currently registered in the UK. We entered their website and searched “commuter students.”

We downloaded and assessed the content and utility of the first four search results and then used Google search to find “university name commuter students” and followed the same method.

We found that the hidden curriculum for commuters is very real. Very few institutions have information for commuter students. Very few have information available to students pre-application, to enable an informed decision and very few have information specifically to support commuters.

Those that do, tend to focus on commuters in the negative, discouraging travel to university, in a sustainability context and framing commuting as a challenge and encouraging relocation to halls of residence.

Getting it right

But there are universities that are getting it right. Our research identified some best practices.

Some institutions provide information about being a commuter at every stage of the student lifecycle and for every student touchpoint. Ideally, including a commuter student equivalent for all information, advice and guidance that is provided.

This is especially important whenever students are making a choice – of institution, course, module, accommodation – and whenever you are providing a service – extra-curricular activities, support and other resources. Not only will this enable informed choice, it will increase the visibility of commuters, which will enhance their sense of belonging.

It’s also important to be clear about learning and teaching, to enable commuter students to make informed decisions about how possible it is to succeed as a commuter. For example, is attendance mandatory for all taught sessions? How many days a week will students be timetabled to attend and when will they know? Do students have to be able to physically access the library? Do you provide on-commute learning options?

Institutions should also ensure that information for commuters is easy to find and take a joined-up approach. We found that the best information for students was content like blogs written by commuters chronicling a day in their life, presenting “life hacks” or linking students to a commuter community. These were available via student societies, or the students’ union, which often aren’t linked to from the institution’s webpages.

Information should be “student first.” For example, ensure that travel information is available to support commuters to access their learning, rather than information about sustainability, or to discourage driving. Most of the travel information that we reviewed was abrasive in its tone, highlighting the inaccessibility of campus to car drivers and focusing on promoting modes that commuters shouldn’t use – this is noble, but it isn’t useful and it adds to the feeling that commuters are not welcome.

Another example is, rather than linking to your Access and Participation Plan as evidence that you consider the needs of commuters, interpret this and talk directly to them.

Finally, most of the information that we reviewed highlighted the problematic nature of commuting – but it can be a positive choice. Information provided by students, for students, was especially effective in promoting the benefits of commuting, supporting students to navigate life as a commuter, from a practical and emotional perspective.

Providing commuters with more honest information about the multiple costs and benefits of being a commuter student, at every stage of the student lifecycle, alongside practical support to help them to overcome these, will support students to succeed. It demonstrates, through information alone, that students are welcome and that they belong.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students, click here to read more.

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March 5, 2025