Category: Commuter students

  • Supporting commuter students with the right information

    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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  • Students making changes on transport

    Students making changes on transport

    Before being elected as a sabbatical officer, I was a commuter student at my university for 5 years.

    Over that time, the price of the single student ticket increased gradually from £1 to £1.70. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it soon adds up.

    It had a huge impact on my studies. I reduced the number of days I spent on campus as I often did not have the funds to afford it. Eventually, I had to find a part-time job to cover the costs which were easily in their hundreds for each year.

    In 2021, following a campaign from youth activists, the “Zoom pass” was introduced in Sheffield, a travel pass often advertised to students that offers discounted tickets and fares to 18–21-year-olds. Sadly, I was already too old.

    I watched the service get drastically reduced, the timetable became more inconsistent and the prices of student tickets got increasingly more expensive. And on top of all this – the bus would never even arrive on time.

    Commuter students are entitled to the same learning opportunities and experiences that university offers.

    Commuter students make up a large proportion of our student population at Sheffield Hallam. In fact, we make up over 55 per cent. Add to the mix that 57 per cent of our students are also mature and more students are working than ever and you’re left with a huge cohort of students who are struggling to afford to attend teaching on campus and who are too busy and tired to engage in campaigning.

    The university has made steps to adapt to the needs of our diverse student body – a move towards more online or hybrid teaching, a condensed timetable with longer hours over fewer days. But students are still struggling. The solution must be to make transport cheaper.

    Time to campaign

    In the last academic year, Hallam Students’ Union launched its third iteration of the cost of living survey and its results were damning.

    We created a set of recommendations that would enable us to develop student support and lobby for positive change, at a local and national level, to help ease the burden on our students.

    For our “Cheaper Transport Campaign,” we committed to lobbying the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), those responsible for economic development, transport and regeneration of South Yorkshire, for cheaper transport for students.

    We want:

    1. The Combined Authority to make the “Zoom pass” available to all students across South Yorkshire, regardless of age, on buses and trams
    2. A reduction in fares overall

    In the meantime, we promoted our campaign on our social media platforms, asking students to share their commuter experiences, with the help of a small cash incentive – the winner having the next few months of their travel expenses paid for.

    Eventually, with thanks to our Vice Chancellor, we were finally able to set up a meeting with our officer team and the South Yorkshire Mayor, Oliver Coppard in October. We discussed all the good stuff: the importance of affordable transport for Hallam students, the student testimonies we had collected, as well as the requests laid out in our campaign.

    Since our meeting, the Mayor has opened a public consultation on taking back control of South Yorkshire’s buses through franchising. Bus franchising will give SYMCA powers to decide what routes buses take, when and where they operate, the quality and reliability of the service, as well as the price of fares.

    With decentralised decision-making, things can happen faster – local people better understand local issues and can find local solutions.

    Ten foot testimony

    We began brainstorming how to engage commuter students, including students that use public transport to travel to placements, with the public consultation. But public consultations are boring and commuter students are time poor.

    We needed to mobilise, build student support and solidarity to get people to engage with public policy decision-makers and sign the consultation. How do you get students to be active citizens in the local transport agenda?

    I enlisted my good friend and fellow artist, Johnsey, to help us facilitate an outreach event to garner some energy, excitement or at least some interest around bus franchising.

    The ten foot testimony, we would call it. We secured a huge piece of paper on the floor, in the entrance of our main university building, inviting students to write their public transport experiences.Two student officers stood on a long piece of paper with feedback from commuter students on

    It was really simple, and I was worried students simply wouldn’t care. Fortunately, passers-by wanted to contribute (staff included) and the ten foot testimony became twenty feet in no time at all.

    While the testimony itself is no good to the Mayor, we had the opportunity to speak to so many students, encouraging them to sign the consultation.

    We successfully managed to engage students in the conversation, had a fun time doing it, and now have a lovely, long and bright piece of documentation to show for it.

    Many students feel disenfranchised when it comes to decision making in their towns and cities. We firmly believe that they should have an active say in how decisions are made and how it impacts them.

    Next stop, success

    The public consultation closed a few weeks ago, and it might be a while before we hear the official result and the following decisions made on bus franchising.

    Recently, one of our largest bus providers in Sheffield, First Buses, announced that they would be keeping the price of the student single fare at £1.50, following the bus fare cap rising. Not only that, but they extended the eligibility of the student ticket for all of South Yorkshire, not just Sheffield. We are hopeful that Stagecoach will follow suit.

    By making commuter students visible, we were able to gather their voice and campaign for more affordable and accessible travel. Whilst we’re not there yet, we’ve engaged students as active citizens in transport policy and displayed the benefits of devolution in practice.

    When it comes to decision making on transport, universities and their student unions can play a huge part in lobbying for an improved commuter student experience. It’s easy for their voices to go amiss in policy making when they are time poor, busy, not on campus or simply don’t think anything will happen fast but the sector can play a role in empowering students to have a more accessible, affordable and sustainable commuter student experience. It’s not just limited to the classroom, it’s also about getting there.

     

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



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  • Shifting institutional thinking about commuter students

    Shifting institutional thinking about commuter students

    As more and more students travel from their home to study, grappling with all the challenges of supporting commuter students has become the norm for the sector.

    How do we create a sense of belonging for these students, how do we make their time on campus as positive as possible and how do we increase attendance and then keep them on campus? It’s often approached as a problem to fix.

    And at the University of Worcester we did just this. And we’ve had some great solutions – providing fridges and microwaves, so commuters could bring and store food. Students services have run “fancy a cuppa” sessions throughout the week so that students have space to gather at no cost and many academic teams are developing flexible approaches to delivery that recognise the challenges of travel.

    But behind the scenes colleagues were starting to recognise that the reasons for commuting and the challenges this created were complex, multi-faceted and far reaching.

    Commuting students are now the majority of our students and this impacts on the experience for all students – getting it right for commuting students means getting it right for all students.

    We need to shift our thinking from commuters as a problem to solve to instead how can the university change and adapt across the institution to meet the evolving needs of our students.

    We needed to listen

    We needed to understand the why, the how and the impact of daily travel to university. And to do this we needed to raise the profile of these students with those tasked with decision making across the university.

    We launched “listening lunches” to combat survey fatigue and facilitate comfortable spaces in the middle of the day where students could drop in on their own terms, have a free lunch and share anything that was on their minds.

    Travelling to campus daily involved managing caring responsibilities, school runs, late or cancelled trains and the impact of travel disruption caused by flooding and road closures. When students were unable to attend it meant disrupted classes, low attendance and made it harder for students to maintain group assignments.

    It wasn’t all negative. Students shared examples of thoughtful and reactive responses from staff who were aware of these challenges and were adapting their practice accordingly. Crucially, this wasn’t formalised or widely applied.

    Where staff were finding ways to support students’ engagement and students had the opportunity to talk to staff about their experience and seeing things being done as a result, this improved how students felt about the university.

    Examples where students felt heard, and where their engagement was not measured in attendance but in participation, were particularly positive.

    Making a case for change.

    While we had anecdotal evidence from multiple sources, it wasn’t being captured in our formal feedback mechanisms, and therefore wasn’t being centred in discussions.

    As part of our sustainability initiatives, we have run a student travel survey for a number of years – surveys were widely seen as important in shaping students’ experience – this was an opportunity to formally gather the feedback we had had anecdotally.

    The surveys were adapted to incorporate questions relating to “commuting students” and we asked students what measures could be put in place to support their participation. Unsurprisingly a lot of the feedback was around the cost of travel, including the cost and availability of car parking and the impact of poor public transport.

    Our second round of listening lunches took the feedback from this survey back to the students as a series of discussion prompts. A complex picture started to emerge that touched on areas such as sustainability, widening participation, retention, campus experience, learning and teaching and support services.

    These are not necessarily areas that have always had a central focus on commuters.

    We need to talk about commuter students on a much broader scale across institutions.

    To do this, we’re sharing our understanding across the university, via formal committees and working groups as well as building a diverse network of colleagues who can centre the needs of commuter students in any and all conversations about the student experience.

    For example, colleagues who are now members of the transport and travel group have been able to support campus-based students needing to travel to placement with timely and affordable university managed transport.

    Building an institutional agenda

    In order to adequately support commuter students, support can’t be centred in one department. Here’s some ways to think about commuter students across an institution.

    Find ways to first centre the student voice in building your understanding of how students participate and engage when living off campus. Then consider ways to broaden the conversation to include colleagues from less obvious areas of the university such as sustainability, EDI, retention and outcomes, resources and facilities as well as continuing to include colleagues from student services and academic schools.

    Reframe the way you consider engagement to go beyond attendance and towards participation and consider that there are more students impacted by commuting than you may first think.

    Don’t view commuters as the problem, but instead a valued and core part of your student community. Making sure your university works for commuters means that it also works for all students.

    Long breaks between lectures on campus are common and when it comes to downtime between lectures, a study or hospitality space isn’t always sufficient. Meaningful things to do on campus makes commuters feel part of a community. At Worcester we’ve co-created the “You Matter” programme to facilitate this with drop-in creative focused activities during the day.

    Finally commuter students’ lives are busy and complex. They place a great deal of importance on how close the university is to their home, i.e. relocating is not a priority or an option due to complex responsibilities. The cost and availability of transport options have a significant impact on students’ ability to attend and students are often juggling family, part-time work and study in an increasingly challenging financial climate.

    The more institutions begin by understanding this, the better. Only then can you build an agenda across an institution to recognise, value and support commuters.

     

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

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  • The potential of educational podcasts for commuter students

    The potential of educational podcasts for commuter students

    Engaging students in learning outside the classroom can often be a challenge, but podcasts might be a simple yet versatile tool we’re overlooking.

    As the number of commuting students rises across institutions, we recognise that students are time poor. There is, however, the potential of using travel time as an opportunity for students to work but also relax and many students use their commute time as an opportunity to prepare for teaching. Podcasting is one of the ways we can design our pedagogy to fit the busy lives of commuter students.

    Think about how you listen to podcasts, most likely while you’re doing other things like driving, cooking or walking. There’s a versatility to it.

    How many of the learning resources we offer allow students to learn on-the-go?

    Education on-the-go

    Most podcast listeners will tell you the convenience of audio-centric and on-the-go content is key to their success. BBC data suggests that about three in four podcast listeners do so while doing something else, so even podcasts that have a video option available need to be planned and created with an audio-only format in mind.

    Offering that versatility also comes at a cost. It’s important to recognise the fact that students might be on a busy bus, or looking for the timetable for their next train connection. We probably won’t have a student’s full attention, and that means that we need to carefully consider the kind of educational content that’s going to work in this format.

    Successful podcasts tend to be focused on experiential storytelling. They are usually fluid and conversational, so don’t be afraid to lean into that. Storytelling gives us emotional responses, helping students connect abstract ideas to real-world implications. A podcast will be much more successful if you give depth and meaning to something a student has already learned, rather than delivering the learning itself.

    Let’s take data analysis as an example. Instead of focusing on the technical process of analysing data, you could discuss stories of the impact of data bias or ethical dilemmas in data usage. Give your students food for thought rather than core learning, use it to turn the numbers into narrative and give a deeper meaning to your classroom content.

    It can also be a good idea to supplement your podcast with a short interactive activity, either online or at the start of your next learning session. Ask students to reflect on the podcast and their key takeaways from it. It can be a great starting point to encourage deeper learning.

    A how to guide

    Another core aspect of successful podcasts is authenticity. You don’t want your podcast to sound like a job interview. Natural conversations foster a sense of authenticity, which is key to keeping listeners engaged. A key part of this comes from the way you prepare for a podcast. Discussion points as opposed to questions allows both you and your guest to think more holistically about the topic and can make a huge difference when it comes to making the conversation flow authentically.

    We’ve found it’s best to give more flexibility and aim for shorter episodes. Splitting a conversation up into bitesize chunks gives students the option to listen to all episodes in one go, or a bit at a time. Starting with a few episodes, around 12-20 minutes each, will offer your students a lot more flexibility than a single 1-hour long podcast.

    Thankfully the technical and logistical aspects of recording podcasts have developed rapidly over the last few years and it’s very easy to get started. Advancements like text-to-speech editing and speech enhancement let you record fully online and get incredible results without any technical knowledge or high-end equipment. A lot of podcasting software now produces automatic text transcription supporting accessibility and allowing students to engage with the content in multiple formats.

    And by framing these resources as useful for students to “listen to on-the-go,” gives students permission to use and access resources in ways which work for them during their busy lives. It recognises commuter students and acknowledges busy student lives and gives them a new innovative way to engage with their studies.

    Getting started

    If you’re interested in giving it a go, here are some ideas to get you started.

    A conversation about a specific assessment: contact a student who did well on an assessment last year and ask if they would be happy to share their experiences. Students can get ideas and inspiration from how they have approached it, what worked well and what they would do differently.

    Interviews with industry experts is another way to frame a podcast. Working professionals don’t always have the time to travel to campus and prepare a lecture for your students. That might be different if they just had to join an online call for a natural conversation. Recording it as a podcast also gives you a reusable resource for future cohorts.

    Student Q&As where students can submit their own questions about a topic or assessment and discuss them in a podcast. This could be an idea to explore on your own, with another lecturer, or with professionals in the industry.

    It’s clear that using podcasts as a form of education comes with a lot of challenges, but it also offers a vast world of opportunities and flexibility for students. Where students face further challenges to engage and attend classes, it is worth considering how educational podcasts may be a mechanism so that resources work around busy and complex student lives. For commuting students, a great deal of time is spent on public transport and in maximising their time, providing resources that are engaging, useful and timely is a step in the right direction. And in designing resources specifically with commuter students in mind it recognises their experiences and allows them to engage authentically.

    And to make podcasts work for commuter students in an educational context we need to be realistic about the challenges students face and create content that works in a podcast format rather than shoehorning existing content into a new format. If we nail that, then podcasts could become a very useful tool for delivering educational content that fits around students and heightens engagement.

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  • Shaping higher education for commuter students

    Shaping higher education for commuter students

    For the first time, there are now more commuter students in the UK – students who continue to live at home whilst studying, rather than relocating to attend university – than traditional residential students.

    Surprised? You’re not alone. My research on commuter students suggests that even commuter students themselves don’t realise that there are others like them. In common with most of those who shape higher education pedagogy, policy, practices and plans for the future, they believe that they are a minority, an anomaly, inconsistent with the (presumed) majority of “normal,” residential students.

    The sector is increasingly waking up to the needs and experiences of commuter students, supported by the inclusion of commuters in the Office for Students Equality of Opportunity Risk Register in England – Emma Maslin has explored this further on the site.

    It is essential, for students, higher education institutions and the future viability of our sector, that we increase awareness of commuter students – who they are and what they need – and that we reshape higher education provision for this growing cohort.

    Students will benefit from a better experience and outcomes. Institutions will benefit from higher retention, league table position and therefore recruitment. The sector as a whole will benefit from greater financial stability and clear evidence to the government that we are meeting their priorities and truly expanding access and improving outcomes for non-traditional students.

    Who commutes – and why?

    Commuter students are diverse. However, there is a strong correlation between being a non-traditional student – those targeted by widening participation initiatives – and being a commuter student.

    This is because many of the reasons that students have historically been unable or unwilling to enrol in higher education are the same as those that make them unable or unwilling to relocate. These include affordability, being first in family to higher education, from a low-participation neighbourhood, having caring or family commitments, over 25. Commuters are also likely to be in employment, be home owners, to be studying part time, at lower-tariff universities. Finally, my research suggests that commuter students are more likely to be local students, not long-distance learners.

    This said, commuting isn’t always about widening participation. It is likely that the undersupply of student accommodation and resultant increasing prices, alongside the cost-of-living crisis, are encouraging traditional students to remain at home. There is also evidence to suggest that international and postgraduate students are more likely to be commuters, both key target markets for UK higher education institutions.

    Relocation as a predictor of success

    But why does this matter? Data tell us that commuter students have a poorer experience throughout the student lifecycle. Choice of institution, access to learning, resources, support and extra-curricular activities, are all restricted. Commuters are less able to engage with in-person learning activities and are isolated from their learning community.

    They feel less a sense of belonging, more a sense of burden. In consequence, commuter students have lower attainment, continuation and graduate outcomes than their residential counterparts.

    In part, this is because higher education has been designed without consideration of the need to travel. Pedagogy, policy and processes have historically been and continue to be shaped around residential students. Assessments, extracurricular activities, facilities, learning and wellbeing support, teaching activities, timetabling—all continue to be premised on the residential model, structured for the residential student, provided at a time and in a place that assumes that students live on or near to campus.

    What next?

    The first step is to see our commuters. Count them, to make them count. Make them visible, not only to decision makers and practitioners, but also to each other. Provide information for commuters, before, during and after application. Create a sense of belonging, building community through awareness, acceptance and actions such as repurposing unused parts of the estate, for commuter students – a common room, sleeping areas.

    Next, review all policies for accessibility, with particular focus on timetabling, attendance, learning and teaching, support services and skills development.

    Make changes where necessary, enabling students to maximise access, whilst minimising travel. Rethink in-person learning and make attendance worth it. Consider online learning, but avoid hybrid learning and include on-commute learning options.

    Myth busting

    For commuter students, access to learning isn’t just about distance. It’s not even just about transport. We need to look at the acceptability, accessibility, affordability and availability of transport. However, we also need to recognise that access and participation are also about students’ activities, responsibilities and relationships, outside of the classroom.

    The data tell us that our commuter students are struggling to adapt to pedagogy, policies and practices that are based on the assumption that they will relocate to attend university. Our ability to adapt our provision to their needs is likely to be key to the future sustainability of many of our institutions, if not the sector as a whole.

    This article is the first in our series on commuter students where we’ll explore their student journey and what support institutions and the sector can provide to enhance their experience. If you’d like to get involved in the series, we’d welcome further contributions, email team@wonkhe.com to pitch us an article.

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