Category: Featured

Is going to university still worth it? A widening participation student’s view

By David Lam, Activities Officer at the Students’ Union Bath.

As a child, I always envisioned a very traditional educational journey. I would work my way through high school, do my A levels and then end up at a good university, graduating into a well-paid job. I think this is the journey most undertake or are pointed towards as we were told that university students almost always earn more than those without one. It’s a no-brainer, right?

However, there have been recent conversations about the value of going to university and getting a degree. Being a student is tough right now, because:

Despite these challenges, record numbers of students from TUNDRA 1 (lowest participation) backgrounds have made it to university. A remarkable stat! But why has this happened? I believe university opens so many more opportunities for you besides a good education and, for this reason, people would prefer to earn and learn rather than not doing it at all.

Going to university allows you to access a whole load of new experiences through societies and sports clubs at a relatively low cost and without much commitment. At Bath, there are over 200 groups that you can join, ranging from common interests like football and board games to more niche ones like sailing and gliding. I am sure there are equally wide offers at other universities. Having gone to a state school, I never had the opportunity to try all these things while others from more privileged backgrounds did.

Studying at Bath meant I had access to a wide range of placements for my year in industry. Without the wonderful placement team showing me all the world had to offer, I would not have known where to start, nor would I have ever considered doing a placement. I had always seen movies that involved people going for the best year of their life abroad in a sunny place, making friends for life and being temporarily free from studying. I decided I wanted that experience too, but then the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, meaning my opportunities suddenly shrank. Despite the setback of a global pandemic, I eventually found an opportunity and I ended up working in Madrid as a Physical Education (PE) teacher in an international school. It was the best year of my life, living the dream I’d seen on TV, thanks to my university’s placement team’s support.

Attending university exposes you to people from diverse backgrounds. Coming from a small town in the Midlands, predominantly made up of white British residents, I was one of only three kids of colour in my entire primary school. So arriving in Bath and encountering people who looked like me was a strikingly different experience. Some of my closest friends come from all over the world and, yes, eventually when we all leave Bath, I will be visiting them at some point! The chances of me making such friendships would have been minimal had I stayed in my little town and I would have nowhere near as enlightened an understanding of other cultures as I have now.

University is often the first real taste of freedom for many, marking the transition from life at home to living independently. You are no longer surrounded by an endless supply of clean clothes or home-cooked meals; instead, you are managing your own routine and life, all within the relatively safe university environment. This shift into the big wide world fosters resilience and builds people skills. You will inevitably encounter challenges, like that one housemate who never does their dishes. But part of the university experience is learning to handle these issues yourself, having the tough conversations and solving problems independently rather than relying on someone else to step in. Along the way, you will meet both amazing people and those who are not so great. While no degree teaches you how to interact with others, living with a diverse group of people forces you to learn those essential skills.

For these reasons, I still believe there is value in going to university. While not everyone’s experience is the same, the underlying benefits remain. The university experience represents a beacon of opportunity and opens so many doors. It leads to things you would have never imagined doing, like living in another country for a whole year or writing a blog for a higher education think tank. Seeing the Office for Students turn its attention to the wider student experience, rather than exclusively to education, is welcome. I believe more places should be taking this holistic view and I look forward to seeing what their new strategy comes out with it.

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February 3, 2025
Renters’ Rights Bill Update – into the Lords
By Martin Blakey, the former Chief Executive of the Leeds-based student housing charity Unipol. Read Martin’s previous comments on the Renters’ Rights Bill from November 2024, October 2024 and June 2024. A proposed amendment to the Bill is attached at the bottom.

Elsewhere on the site, David Lam explores, from the perspective of a widening participation student, the true value of going to university – not just in terms of career prospects, but in the friendships, experiences, and personal growth it fosters. You can read the blog here.

Background

The Renters Rights Bill passed its Report stage in the Commons on 14 January 2025. The first reading has now taken place in the House of Lords, with the second reading listed to take place on Tuesday 4th February. The stated aim of the Government is that the Bill should become law and take effect over the summer of 2025 and, at present, the Bill is on track to achieve that aim.

This is a good moment, therefore, for an update on recent developments together with a few thoughts about how the Bill has developed and been shaped.

This blog follows on from the earlier detailed HEPI blog on 9 October 2024 Renters’ Rights Bill and Student Accommodation: The Final Stretch? https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/10/09/renters-rights-act-and-student-accommodation-the-final-stretch/ and does not seek to cover that ground again.

As a reminder, most of the Renters’ Rights Bill will not apply to purpose build student accommodation (PBSA) where the provider is a member of the Government approved Code; PBSA providers will let their rooms on common law tenancies rather than the assured tenancies that are covered by this Bill.

Latest Developments

During the Report stage of the Bill in the Commons, a relatively small number of Government amendments were agreed upon (no non-Government amendments were agreed) and three have particular relevance to students in off-street housing on assured tenancies:

a) a new clause 14 limits the amount of rent that a landlord can require to a maximum of one month. It does so by amending Schedule 1 to the Tenant Fees Act 2019 so that any payment of rent made before a tenancy agreement is signed will be a prohibited payment. A new clause 13 amends the Housing Act 1988 to ensure that tenants continue to be protected from unreasonable requests for rent to be paid early once a tenancy has commenced. Landlords will no longer be able to include any terms in the tenancy agreement that have the effect of requiring rent to be paid prior to the rent due date.

The effect of this is that tenants can be certain that the financial outlay to secure a tenancy will not exceed the cost of a tenancy deposit and the first month’s rent.

b) A restriction has been added to repossession ground 4A (that allows landlords to recover possession of an HMO that is let to full-time students) and landlords will not be able to use the ground if the tenancy was agreed more than six months in advance of the date on which the tenant has a right to occupy the dwelling.

c) A new Clause 21 inserts sections into the Housing Act 1988 to limit a guarantor’s liability for rent following the death of a tenant. Terms of guarantee agreements that purport to hold a guarantor liable for rent in these circumstances will be unenforceable. The details are complex but, generally, this liability is removed only where a guarantor is a ‘family member’.

So, what impact will these changes have on student tenants? As is common in housing, there is a balance between the positives and negatives that these changes will bring.

a) Restricting rent in advance

Generally, this means that students will pay rent monthly to their landlord, in advance. This will have the advantage that students who previously found renting difficult because they did not have sufficient ‘up-front’ money will find renting easier. Notably, rental payments will no longer bear any relationship to when students receive their loan payments or University terms.

The downside to this change is that students, unlike most tenants in the private rented sector, rarely have a credit history and landlords sometimes see students posing a higher risk of non-payment. This is particularly the case if a student is from overseas, where debt recovery post-tenancy can be difficult, if not impossible. Up-front rent payment has, in the past, gone someway to allaying fears of non-payment.

Many landlords are likely to react to this perception of increased risk by increasing their use of guarantors (where a third party guarantees to pay the rent in the event of tenant default).

One of the key MPs seeking to restrict up-front rent payments (Alex Sobel MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, which has a large student population) realised this and also made a strong case for limiting the use of guarantors but this was rejected by the Minister who said

I appreciate fully that obtaining a guarantor can be difficult for some prospective tenants, and I understand the reasoning behind his amendment. However, I am also mindful that in some instances the use of guarantors can provide good landlords with the assurance necessary to let their properties to tenants who may otherwise find it difficult to access private rented accommodation… Having considered this issue in great detail, I ultimately concluded that limiting guarantors could inadvertently make life more difficult for certain types of renter.

Hard data on the use of guarantors is hard to come by, but their use will likely increase. This might cause problems for those with no easy access to guarantors, particularly those who have no family members or international students who have no UK-based contacts.

Another likelihood is that landlords start increasing the size of deposits to guard against the non-payment of rent. Generally, the size of deposits that students pay has been low compared to other private renters. This is probably because, at the time of renting, students are low on cash and many have already paid one deposit (for where they are currently living). Being asked to pay a larger deposit for next year’s accommodation acts as a disincentive to rent and therefore landlords have kept student deposit levels low.

Many non-student private renters are asked to pay a deposit that is the maximum allowed by the Tenant Fees Act which is capped at 5 weeks rent. Looking at the most detailed national data available in the last 2021 Unipol/NUS Accommodation cost survey, the average deposit students paid was £259 and the average weekly rent (at that time, excluding London) was £170. So in theory, student deposits could be increased to around £850. It is unlikely student deposits will rise to their maximum level, but many forecast an increase from the commonly charged £250 to £500 over the next couple of years.

On balance, the positives and the negatives probably balance each other out. Some students will benefit, others will not. Although placing limits on guarantors may have been seen as a step to far by the Government, had up-front rent payments been restricted and the use of guarantors had also been restricted, this would have been a significant win for student renters.

b) Trying to stop early renting

This new clause aims to reduce early renting. Landlords will no longer be allowed to take repossession of their property under the new ground for possession (4a) that stops students from staying outside of the academic cycle if the tenancy was agreed more than six months in advance of the date on which the tenant has a right to occupy the dwelling.

The Housing Minister, in agreeing this change, said that this would:

Act as a strong disincentive against landlords who wish to use it to pressure students into early sign-ups, as many do now.

Many in the student housing world have long been dismayed at how the student renting season has been getting earlier and earlier. Many first-year students now rent properties for their second year of study within their first 6 weeks of arriving as freshers. Anything that stops this early letting is a good thing and is to be welcomed. This change is likely to have no negative effect on the overall level of supply and demand in the student market; it simply gives students a longer time to think and will enhance their decision-making.

But this is an odd way of going about trying to stop this early letting cycle. Indeed, the Minister went on to say:

I want to be clear that the amendment will not lead to an outright ban on contracts being agreed more than six months in advance.

This is why an earlier HEPI blog said:

It is clearly daft that many students are looking for next year’s housing in November of the preceding year. There should be a ‘cooling off period’ that would allow students to withdraw unilaterally from any contract made up to four months before it begins.

So, two points here. Firstly, on timing, many student tenancies begin over the summer period (from 1July onwards), so renting could still take place in early January and ground 4a could still be used. A four month limit would have meant many students renting in March, which would have been a much better outcome.

Secondly, this is an odd way of going about trying to tackle early-renting. A legal expert in this field makes the point:

I don’t like the ‘removal of privileges’ approach to achieving policy objectives. It would be clearer all round if they either ‘banned’ signing up more than 6 months in advance, or gave people cancellation rights. That way, landlords and tenants have more chance of understanding what they are doing. With this approach, I can see students signing up early as always, then realising that Ground 4A can’t be used and staying put. The people who will lose out are the intending tenants of the following year, who are unlikely to have made any enquiry before booking as to whether or not the landlord will be able to give possession.

This change, if it has the effect of slowing down early-renting, is to be welcomed but it is a bit half-hearted and may have less impact than hoped for.

c) Limiting a guarantor’s liability for rent following the death of a tenant

This change followed a number of examples given by MPs of landlords heartlessly chasing guarantors for payment following the death of a tenant. The new clause aiming to stop this is, however, limited to family members. As the Minister put it:

I should make it clear that if in a joint tenancy the guarantor is not a family member, their liability for rent will be maintained….Our new clause strikes the right balance: guarantors will be protected from being held liable for rent when they are grieving; landlords will be able to reclaim costs owed prior to a tenant’s death; and guarantor’s liability for other costs incurred under the tenancy will not be affected.

This approach gives rise to several pages of detail in the Bill, not least because it has to define ‘family member’ and then goes into considerable detail about what happens when the guarantee affects joint tenants (as many student renters are). These additional clauses bear all the hallmarks of a rushed and ill-thought-through change. The definition of ‘family member’ for guarantor purposes, for example, is different from another definition in the same Bill of ‘family member’ relating to tenancy succession.

Again, all a bit half-hearted and unnecessarily complex. What was wrong with saying, once a tenant dies, their guarantor arrangement dies with them? For students, this change will have little effect unless, at the point the tenant dies, a guarantor is a family member and those within joint tenancy arrangements have restricted the scope of their guarantor payment to a fixed sum of rent (otherwise unpaid rent is a joint liability to be borne by other tenants or their guarantors).

Students and the Report Stage

Students were mentioned frequently in the debate, often by MPs with significant numbers of students living in their constituency. Generally, they confined their comments to amendments and had, no doubt, been told that this was not the place for revisiting matters that had already been considered during the second reading stage.

Several MPs raised the issue of affordability in rented housing, both for students and other renters and there was frequent referencing of whether rent controls should be used, or ‘rent stabilisation’ that some MPs suggested should ensure that rents should rise by no more than annual earnings or CPI. The Minister, Matthew Pennycook, went out of his way in his summing up speech to reject the possibility of rent controls:

The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer), spoke in support of their respective amendments to introduce forms of rent control.

However, as we debated extensively in Committee, the Government sincerely believe that the introduction of rent controls in the private rented sector could harm tenants as well as landlords by reducing supply and discouraging investment. While I fully appreciate that there is a broad spectrum of regulation that falls under the title of rent control, there is, as we debated at length in Committee, sufficient international evidence from countries such as Sweden and Germany, cities such as San Francisco and Ontario, and the Scottish experience since 2017, to attest to the potential detrimental impacts of rent control.

An amendment to extend ground 4a to all properties occupied by students failed. Readers will recall that ground 4a allows a landlord, with prior notification to tenants, to repossess a property in order that it can be let to future groups of students. After a considerable amount of lobbying by both educational sector bodies and landlords, the Government responded that it:

…recognises that the student market is cyclical – and that removing section 21 will mean landlords cannot guarantee possession each year for a new set of tenants.

Having engaged across the sector, we understand the cyclical model is critical for landlords’ business models and ensures a timely and robust supply of student accommodation. We will therefore introduce a ground for possession that will facilitate the yearly cycle of short-term student tenancies. This will enable new students to sign up to a property in advance, safe in the knowledge they will have somewhere to live the next year.

But this right to repossess only applies to Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and it does not apply to one- and two-bedroomed properties.

The suspicion is that the Government assumed non-HMO properties housed only a small number of students and any such reduction in supply would be fairly marginal. This is a significant miscalculation.

Data provided by the Accommodation for Students website (the largest search engine for student off-street properties) showed that 31% of the off-street properties on their website were not HMOs and were listed as showing 1 or 2 beds for rent. There were significant regional variations behind this average, which reflected the different housing stock in different areas. In Newcastle upon Tyne, 54% of student-advertised properties were non-HMOs, in Preston this was 50% and in Nottingham 40%.

These figures show that these smaller properties form a significant minority of the supply and, in many student cities, this kind of smaller property is a key part of the student accommodation supply. These areas, with many non-HMO student properties, are still vulnerable to stock moving into the non-student lettings market.

Purpose Build Student Accommodation

Work is now taking place by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to establish the mechanism whereby PBSA providers will become ‘specified’ under the 1988 Housing Act, taking them outside the remit of much of the Renters Rights Act. There was some speculation about whether the new Decent Homes Standard (DHS) would apply to PBSA, but that has now been clarified. In response to a parliamentary question on 19 December 2024, the Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook said

The Bill will exempt Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) from the assured tenancy system if the landlord is signed up to a government approved code of management practice. Such accommodation will therefore not be subject to the DHS, but landlords will need to meet rigorous standards set by the codes which are tailored to the needs of PBSA….Failure to meet these standards will result in membership being terminated, meaning the property will then be subject to the DHS.

The Government-approved Code for the private sector is currently being reviewed by its operator Unipol and, as was reported earlier, is likely to include provisions to ensure:
- the continued protection of deposits using a Government-approved deposit protection scheme and using that adjudication process to resolve any disputes;
- improved flexibility for students either leaving their institution of study or not gaining a place to study, giving them a right to leave their agreement having given a period of notice. An initial draft of the Code gives the notice period as 8 weeks, but there is a view that this could be shortened to 4 weeks without adversely affecting suppliers;
- that in the event of the death of a tenant, any guarantor agreement will not be proceeded with or enforced;
- that the Code now references the Building Safety Act, the Fire Safety Act and tighter guidance on how to respond to damp and mould; and
- that in handling complaints, timescales have been tightened and Code Members have been given a clearer pathway to ensure they respond promptly to students complaining.
These inclusions in the Code are designed to protect and improve students’ rights in renting PBSA. These proposed changes are subject to both a sector and public consultation period (likely to take place across March and April 2025).

Will anything change in the Lords?

The suspicion is that there will be few major changes made but, for students, two amendments suggest themselves from what has been reported earlier:

The first is that, in order to maintain properties in the student sector, ground 4a should apply to all properties occupied by students, not just HMOs.

The second would be to shorten the time span of 6 months to 4 months, which would allow landlords to recover possession if the house is let to full-time students. This would mean, if the Government’s view that this will discourage early renting is correct, that house-hunting would take place in March, just before Easter.

Conclusion

The Renters Rights Act seeks to rebalance the rights between tenants and landlords and the changes it brings about will have different effects on different sub-sectors of the rental market.

In many areas within the Bill, policymakers wanted all renters to have the same rights with a view to improving the security of tenure for the vast majority of rented tenants and ending no fault evictions. But treating students differently does not imply that they are ‘second-class citizens’; instead, it recognises the important links between good housing supply, on the one hand, and standards and academic achievement on the other. It remains important that student housing does not suffer from collateral damage as additional protections are added to the rest of the private rented sector for longer-term renters.

Many have speculated on what shifts in the availability of student off-street properties will take place, but it is important to stress that no one actually knows what will happen. The first real indications will be seen towards the end of this year, as current first-year undergraduates start looking for their housing for 2026-2027.
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February 3, 2025
Filling their boots? The rationale for growing loss-making home student numbers

The release of provider-level end of cycle data for the 2024 cycle confirms what has been long known informally; this year a group of “higher-tariff” providers went for growth, in some cases by reducing their entry tariff significantly. You can see DK’s crunching of the provider data here.

Typically, behaviour like this leads to grumbling elsewhere in the sector. That’s partly because there’s a direct impact on other institutions’ bottom line when the big players flex in this way, meaning that those who lose out may need to suspend planned investment and/or embark on portfolio rationalisation, rounds of voluntary redundancy, and other cost-reduction measures to stay afloat.

But it’s also because there’s a perception that the selective institutions are pulling in students that mid or lower tariff institutions consider themselves to be best equipped to support and nurture. This (arguably) creates additional risk for the students who find themselves studying at an institution that culturally may assume a greater degree of academic self-efficacy than they actually have.

The debate rumbles on as to whether it’s reasonable to “permit” popular institutions to grow at the expense of others. But much less attention is generally given to the question of why any successful provider with significant overheads would seek to grow home student recruitment at all. In 2022 the Russell Group warned that the average deficit incurred by English universities per home student per year was £1,750 per student per year, and that a “conservative estimate” would see that deficit increasing to £4000 by the current academic year.

Assuming you’re not an economist or a strategy consultant (if you are, do write in), you might legitimately be scratching your head about the strategic intent behind increasing sales of a product you don’t make any money on – indeed, that you have to subsidise from other sources. Higher education institutions don’t have to make money of course – the goal is generally to realise a small surplus across the breadth of activities, recognising that some degree of cross-subsidy, primarily from international student income, is part of the business model. But even with that caveat, growth of a loss-making activity in times of financial pressure remains, on the face of it, a peculiar approach.

What’s going on?

There are three strategic rationales for this that I can think of. It might be that hitherto high tariff institutions are growing for public interest reasons – to meet their access and participation targets, or because they are offering new courses of value to their regions or that will attract a wider range of international students or even support a particular research ambition.

It might be that they are growing in the subject areas that are cheaper to teach in hopes of making inroads into that average deficit and reducing the level of cross-subsidy from other sources. Over on DK’s end of cycle data visualisations you can take a look at the general subject areas where particular institutions have seen growth. DK would no doubt be the first to tell you that HECoS subject grouping isn’t quite as nuanced as you’d need to be able to make that case plausibly, though there’s probably a bit of it going on. This was a concern the Augar review flagged back in 2019 – that the fixed unit of resource, all other things being equal, tends to incentivise growth in subject areas that have higher margins and for which there is stable or growing demand, rather than trying to generate additional demand for more expensive and less popular subjects.

It is possible there might be changes to teaching and/or student support provision that have generated sufficient efficiencies to get to a break-even or modest surplus situation on home students that would make overall growth a sensible business strategy. This is the current focus of a lot of sector thinking on efficiency – if the unit of resource isn’t increasing fast enough, but student (and regulatory) expectations aren’t reducing, then the sector has to figure out ways to make its provision sustainable, through technology adoption, more sharing and collaboration among institutions, reducing costs in areas where the institution believes there is minimal impact on student experience, and so on.

While there is a lot of interesting thinking going on around efficiency, it’s doubtful that this number of institutions has made such significant progress as to get to the point of wiping out the home student deficit in its totality, though there may be some efficiencies to be gained through economies of scale.

There are also several less overtly strategic options. One is that the institutions in question don’t have that strong a central grip on their admissions. It’s easy to imagine in a devolved academic system individual departments and faculties pursuing growth to increase their own overall income without a great deal of attention being given to the aggregate effect on the institution as a whole.

The final possibility – and in all honesty I think this is probably at least a somewhat accurate assessment – is that the calculation is that growth, even cross-subsidised growth, will demonstrate market strength, which will satisfy boards of governors, reassure lenders, and keep the university in good fettle with the bond markets. Which raises the question about what happens next year and the year after that. Growth, even for the most popular institutions can’t be an indefinite strategy. And what happens to the rest?

For the big players, growth can generally be deployed as a tactical response to immediate financial pressure, while structural or operational change can be deferred to future times, when there’s more bandwidth and appetite for change, or clarity about the policy environment. Other institutions don’t in most cases have that luxury and some are likely to be less stable as a result.

The policy response

So how should government respond? It’s very hard to make the case that students should be forced – or at least obliged – to attend an institution that isn’t their first choice simply to ensure that that institution remains generally healthy and sustainable. We should also on principle give those selective institutions the benefit of the doubt on their strategic preparedness for a different intake this year. Growth in the hundreds in an institution of thousands, if fairly evenly spread, needn’t be an issue if there is a plan in place to support those students and notice if any are struggling.

It’s still worth saying, though, that if you’re looking through the lens of student interest, the market principle that student choice is the most important thing only holds true if the basis on which prospective students are making choices has a meaningful relationship with their prospect of flourishing at their chosen institution. So it remains a bit of a worry that if there are issues we’ll only know about it when the outcome data surfaces in the coming years – too late to do anything about it.

Some in the sector wish there was a way of putting restraints on the market without resorting to institutional student number controls. There are options short of total control that might focus on restraining or encouraging recruitment in particular subject areas, or asking institutions to evidence the case for growth, and/or subjecting them to more stringent oversight when growth exceeds a certain margin. It would also be theoretically possible, though very complicated, to set quality thresholds around inputs ie set conditions around the available resources in the learning environment all students should be able to expect.

But it’s also worth government giving consideration to the idea that in market terms all of this only is an issue because the perception is that the size of the market is pretty fixed and institutions are by and large vying for a larger slice of the pie rather than trying to grow the pie. UCAS data tends to support that view as applications via UCAS have seen growth at a lower rate than the sector hoped given the demographic growth in 18-19 year olds in the wider population.

Published UCAS data does not, however, capture applications made direct to institutions or, indeed, PG-level applications, and there may be growth or potential for growth in other parts of the market. Market purists would argue that if a provider is not seeing success in its traditional market then the smart move is to tap into a different market. While this might be accurate in strategic terms, this analysis tends to gloss over the risks and complexities involved in making such a pivot, especially when the provider in question is already feeling financially squeezed.

Even if your market share is eroding, trying to win it back can be perceived as a path of less resistance and more immediate potential reward than entirely retooling the whole offer – even if thinking this way is also a highly risky strategy if things continue as they are and the rewards fail to materialise, as some institutions have discovered to their cost.

If government wants a policy win on two key fronts: widening access to selective institutions and broadening the pool of people who benefit from HE in general, it could do worse than to create a programme of support explicitly targeted at those institutions who are less powerful in the “traditional” market but that still have a great deal to offer their localities, and work with them to develop the offer to prospective students where there is latent growth potential – pooling risk and transition costs, with a payoff ultimately realised in skills and economic growth.

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February 3, 2025
HEDx Podcast: Penn State chancellor Dan Greenstein – Episode 152

By: Martin Betts

in Analysis, Features, International Education, Podcasts, Radio+TV, Top Stories

February 3, 2025

Pennsylvania State University chancellor emeritus Dan Greenstein joins Martin Betts to discuss his varied career and how it impacts his work today.

The chancellor has held roles at the University of Oxford, the University of California, the Gates Foundation and Boston Consulting.

He explains the recruitment platform that facilitated the university’s major mergers and what front office systems transformed student experience and institutional sustainability.

Do you have an idea for a story?
Email [email protected]

HEDx
2025-02-03

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February 3, 2025
Vice-chancellor pay and “quality of governance” to be scrutinised by Senate inquiry

Labor Senator Tony Sheldon is chair of the Senate Committee on Education and Employment. Picture: Martin Ollman

By: Erin Morley

in Policy & Reform, Politics, Top Stories

February 3, 2025

Australia’s vice-chancellors will be questioned about their pay packages, instances of wage underpayment, and the use of external consultants in a new parliamentary inquiry into the quality of university governance.

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February 3, 2025
92 jobs cut and subjects ‘disestablished’ at Wollongong uni

University of Wollongong interim vice-chancellor John Dewar said ‘support arrangements are in place to ensure continuity in [students’] studies’. Picture: NCA Newswire

By: Erin Morley

in Top Stories, Workforce

February 3, 2025

The University of Wollongong (UOW) has confirmed 91.6 full-time equivalent positions will be cut in a financial restructure, after revealing it offered redundancies to 137 staff in November 2024.

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February 3, 2025
Here’s where AI, VR and AR are boosting learning in higher ed
Australian universities and TAFEs are embracing and combining emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

These innovations are reshaping the further and higher education sectors, offering more engaging, accessible, data-based learning experiences for students, educators and institutions alike.

As students and institutions seek value amidst economic and work-life challenges, these technologies are crucial in delivering sustainable and scalable skilling and workforce-development goals. Integrating AI, VR, and AR can provide more personalised and cost-effective learning pathways for students facing daily pressures, making education more accessible and financially viable.

The transformative role of AI in personalised learning

AI is becoming a game-changer in Australian education by enabling personalised learning and providing data-driven insights. AI-powered platforms can analyse the complex interplay of factors impacting student performance and customise immersive content delivery to improve persistence, resilience and success.

This integrated approach can serve personalised springboard content that matches students’ strengths, promotes growth in areas of weakness, and builds both capability and confidence.

In this way, AI is not just about student learning; it also directly benefits teachers and professional staff. It streamlines the development of educational materials, from video and interactive content to branched lessons and adaptive learning paths.

A few Australian higher and vocational education institutions have already demonstrated this by exploring the affordances of AI-driven platforms to offer personalised learning programs tailored to students’ career goals and development needs.

Researchers from the University of South Australia are proving how AI can enhance students’ learning outcomes, equip teachers with advanced education tools and overhaul the education sector for good.

At the University of Sydney, AI-driven learning platforms offer personalised learning experiences via the university’s generative AI platform, Cogniti, which shows that generative AI is a powerful way to support teachers and their teaching, not supplant them.

Immersive learning through VR

Virtual reality also continues to revolutionise Australian further and higher education, providing immersive learning environments that make complex subjects more accessible and engaging.

From medical schools to engineering programs and advanced manufacturing, VR allows students to engage with practical scenarios that realistically present workplace problems, assess skills application and assess complex tasks.

VR is a technology with tremendous promise in scaling high-quality and safe immersive learning by doing training at TAFE NSW.

Its Ultimo campus utilises a high-tech, remarkably lifelike canine mannequin to provide aspiring veterinary nurses with invaluable hands-on training.

Recently imported from the USA, this highly advanced model enables animal studies and veterinary nursing students to develop essential clinical skills, including intubation, CPR, bandaging and ear cleaning.

By implementing VR as a training tool, TAFE NSW Ultimo plumbing students can learn to recognise potential risk from return electrical current via copper pipes into a residence, which can cause serious, even fatal, electric shock, in a safe and protected environment.

Additionally, its welding students were able to identify and solve potentially hazardous scenarios when preparing for welding work.

AR brings practical training to life

AR is another immersive technology revolutionising Australian education by deepening the interaction between students and their learning materials. AR overlays digital content in the real world, making abstract concepts more tangible and understandable.

AR is broadly applicable across diverse fields such as healthcare, technical trades, and construction, allowing students to practice and refine their skills in a controlled, simulated environment.

At TAFE Queensland, welding students use AR to identify and solve potentially hazardous scenarios when preparing for welding work.

With a screen inside the helmet, students position their virtual welding torch, with sparks flying like in real life, against a plastic board and press the torch trigger to see the welds they have made.

The screen flashes red when they are incorrect and gives them a score at the end. Using AR in welding has reduced raw material wastage by 68 per cent at a time of scarcity.

TAFE Box Hill Institute’s Advanced Welder Training Centre is equipped with the latest augmented reality simulators, allowing students to use best-practice technology and quality systems in a hands-on environment.

It was developed in collaboration with Weld Australia, which represents Australian welding professionals, and will help address the current shortage of qualified and skilled welders in Australia.

Monash University’s Engineering Student Pilot Plant is designed to reflect real-world industrial environments and requirements.

AR experiences are being developed in Vuforia Studio using 3D CAD models of the pilot plant, enabling visualisation of proposed equipment before installation.

These AR interfaces will integrate with Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Digital Twin models and process simulations, creating an AR-based Human Machine Interface (HMI) that enhances on-site accessibility by providing remote, simultaneous interaction with the physical equipment and its Digital Twin.

The future of Australian further and higher education

The future of further and higher education in Australia will likely see these advanced digital technologies integrated further into the curriculum, offering new opportunities and skills for students to thrive in a competitive, tech-driven environment.

Australia’s educational institutions have a rich history of effectively using educational technology to further learning and teaching.

Assessing and leveraging rapidly evolving tools like AR and Gen AI will ensure they remain at the forefront of global education by providing students with the relevant and engaging learning experiences they need to succeed.

Tony Maguire is regional director of ANZ at global learning technology company D2L.
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February 3, 2025
The higher education sector needs to come together to renew its commitment to enhancing student engagement

“Engagement, to me, is probably…getting the most out of university…taking and making the most of available opportunities.”

This quote, from Queen’s University Belfast students’ union president Kieron Minto sums up a lot of the essential elements of what we talk about when we talk about student engagement.

It captures the sense that the higher education experience has multiple dimensions, incorporating personal and professional development as well as academic study. Students will be – and feel – successful to the extent that they invest time and energy in those activities that are the most purposeful. Critically, it captures the element of student agency in their own engagement – higher education institutions might make opportunities available but students need to decide to engage to get the most from them.

In recent years “student engagement” has suffered from the curse of ubiquity. Its meanings and applications are endlessly debated. Is it about satisfaction, academic success, personal growth, or a combination of factors? There is a wealth of examples of discrete projects and frameworks for thinking about student engagement, but often little read-across from one context to another. We can celebrate the enormous amount of learning and insight that has been created while at the same time accepting that as the environment for higher education changes some of the practices that have evolved may no longer be fit for purpose.

Higher education institutions and the students that are enrolled in them face a brace of challenges, from the learning and development losses of the Covid pandemic, to rising costs and income constraints, to technological change. Institutions are less able to support provision of the breadth of enriching opportunities to students at the same time as students have less money, time, and emotional bandwidth to devote to making the most of university.

The answer, as ever, is not to bemoan the circumstances, or worse, blame students for being less able to engage, but to tool up, get strategic, and adapt.

Students still want to make the most of the opportunities that higher education has to offer. The question is how to design and configure those opportunities so that current and future students continue to experience them as purposeful and meaningful.

Fresh student engagement thinking

Our report, Future-proofing student engagement in higher education, brings together the perspectives of academic and professional services staff, higher education leaders, and students, all from a range of institutions, to establish a firm foundation of principles and practices that can support coherent, intentional student engagement strategies.

A foundational principle for student engagement is that students’ motivations and engagement behaviours are shaped by their backgrounds, prior experiences, current environments, and hopes and expectations for their futures – as explained by Ella Kahu in her socio-cultural framework for student engagement (2013).

It follows that it is impossible to think about or have any kind of meaningful organisational strategy about student engagement without working closely in partnership with students, drawing on a wide range of data and insight about the breadth of students’ opinions, behaviours, and experiences. Similarly, it follows that a data-informed approach to student engagement must mean that the strategy evolves as students do – taking student engagement seriously means adopting an institutional mindset of preparedness to adapt in light of feedback.

Where our research indicates that there needs to be a strategic shift is in the embrace of what might be termed a more holistic approach to student engagement, in two important senses.

The first is understanding at a conceptual level how student engagement is realised in practice throughout every aspect of the student journey, and not just manifested in traditional metrics around attendance and academic performance.

The second is in how institutions, in partnership with students, map out a shared strategic intent for student engagement for every stage of that journey. That includes designing inclusive and purposeful interventions and opportunities to engage, and using data and insight from students to deepen understanding of what factors enable engagement and what makes an experience feel purposeful and engaging – and ideally creating a flow of data and insight that can inform continuous enhancement of engagement.

Theory into practice

Our research also points to how some of that shift might be realised in practice. For example, student wellbeing is intimately linked to engagement, because tired, anxious, excluded or overwhelmed students are much less able to engage. When we spoke to university staff about wellbeing support they were generally likely to focus on student services provision. But students highlighted a need for a more proactive culture of wellbeing throughout the institution, including embedding wellbeing considerations into the curriculum and nurturing a supportive campus culture. Similarly, on the themes of community and belonging, while university staff were likely to point to institutional strategic initiatives to cultivate belonging, students talked more about their need for genuine individual connections, especially with peers.

There was also a strong theme emerging about how institutions think about actively empowering students to have the confidence and skills to “navigate the maze” of higher education opportunities and future career possibilities. Pedagogies of active learning, for example, build confidence and a sense of ownership over learning, contributing to behavioural and psychological engagement. Developing students’ digital literacy means that students can more readily deploy technology to support connection with academics and course peers, make active critical choices about how they invest time in different platforms, and prepare for their future workplace. Before getting exercised about how today’s students do not arrive in higher education “prepared to engage,” it’s worth remembering just how much larger and more complicated the contemporary university is, and with these, the increased demands on students.

While there is a lot that institutions can do to move forward their student engagement agenda independently, there is also a need for a renewed focus on student engagement from the higher education sector as a whole. The megathemes contributing to shifting student engagement patterns are shared; they are not distinctive to any institution type, geography, or student demographic.

The promise of higher education – that you can transform your life, your identity and your future through a higher education experience – only holds true if students are willing and able to engage with it. This demands a unified effort from all involved.

Institutions must prioritise student engagement, placing it at the heart of their strategies and decisions. Furthermore, the higher education sector as a whole must renew its focus on student engagement, recognising its fundamental role in achieving the goals of higher education. Finally, as regulatory bodies evolve their approach to the assessment and enhancement of academic quality, student engagement must once again be put front and centre of the higher education endeavour.

This article is published in association with evasys. You can download a copy of Future-proofing student engagement here.

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February 3, 2025
These Are the Top 10 AI Prompts Every University Student Needs to Succeed (2025)

Listen up! If you’re a university student, you’re juggling deadlines, lectures, and endless assignments.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But here’s the truth—success isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter. And AI? It’s your secret weapon.

Imagine cutting study time in half, getting crystal-clear explanations, and never staring at a blank screen again. These ten AI prompts will supercharge your learning, boost your productivity, and give you the unfair advantage you’ve been looking for. Let’s go!

#10. Article Summarizer

Prompt:
“Summarize the following article in clear and simple terms, keeping the response under 300 words. Focus only on the key takeaways, eliminating unnecessary details and technical jargon. Ensure the summary maintains the original meaning and does not misrepresent any information. If the article contains complex theories or dense academic language, rephrase it in an accessible way without oversimplifying critical ideas.”

Explanation:

University students are constantly bombarded with lengthy readings, from dense research papers to complex textbook chapters.

The problem? There’s only so much time in a day. This AI prompt is designed to extract the essential information, stripping away excess while preserving the core meaning. Whether you’re preparing for a class discussion, writing a paper, or just trying to understand a difficult concept, this tool saves time and enhances comprehension.

Instead of struggling through pages of convoluted academic writing, you get a clear, structured summary that lets you grasp the key points fast.

#9. Concept Simplifier

Prompt:
“Explain [insert concept] in simple terms, as if to someone without prior knowledge of the topic. Use clear language and everyday analogies, avoiding technical jargon while preserving accuracy. If the concept is abstract, provide a relatable example to illustrate its meaning. Keep the explanation under 200 words, ensuring that it remains informative without being overly simplified.”

Explanation:
Some academic concepts are so complex they feel impossible to understand. Whether it’s an economic principle, a scientific theory, or a philosophical idea, breaking it down into simple language makes learning faster and more effective. This prompt forces AI to act like a great teacher—one who doesn’t just repeat definitions but makes knowledge accessible. The key is balance: simplifying without distorting. By using this, students gain a deeper understanding, making it easier to apply what they’ve learned in discussions, essays, and exams.

#8. Thesis Statement Generator

Prompt:
“Generate three strong, well-structured thesis statements on [insert topic]. Each thesis should take a clear stance and be arguable, avoiding vague or obvious claims. Ensure that each one provides a foundation for a structured essay, with room for supporting arguments and counterarguments. If possible, vary the focus of the thesis statements to cover different angles of the topic.”

Explanation:
Crafting a strong thesis statement is one of the hardest parts of writing an essay. A weak thesis leads to a scattered argument, while a strong one provides direction and clarity. This AI prompt ensures that students start with a solid foundation, giving them multiple thesis options that they can refine based on their specific argument. By exploring different angles, it also helps students think critically about their topic instead of settling for the first idea that comes to mind. A well-crafted thesis is the backbone of any persuasive essay, and this tool eliminates the guesswork.

#7. Essay Outline Builder

Prompt:
“Create a detailed essay outline for an argumentative essay on [insert topic]. The outline should include an introduction with a strong thesis statement, at least three body paragraphs with clear topic sentences and supporting evidence, and a conclusion that reinforces the main argument. Ensure the structure is logical and that each point builds upon the last. If relevant, include a counterargument section to strengthen the essay’s persuasiveness.”

Explanation:
Starting an essay from scratch can feel overwhelming, especially when trying to organize thoughts into a logical flow. This AI prompt removes that barrier by providing a structured outline that acts as a roadmap for writing. Instead of wasting time figuring out where to start, students can focus on developing their ideas and refining their arguments. A clear outline ensures that essays are well-organized, persuasive, and easy to follow—making the entire writing process faster and more effective.

#6. Study Plan Optimizer

Prompt:
“Create a personalized study schedule for the next [insert timeframe] based on the following subjects: [list subjects]. Prioritize subjects based on difficulty and upcoming deadlines, ensuring balanced study sessions. Incorporate review time for previously learned material and schedule short breaks to maximize focus. The plan should be realistic and flexible, avoiding burnout while maintaining steady progress.”

Explanation:
Cramming at the last minute is one of the biggest mistakes students make, leading to stress and poor retention. A well-structured study plan ensures that learning is spread out efficiently, reinforcing knowledge instead of overwhelming the brain. This AI prompt helps students optimize their time, ensuring that they focus on high-priority topics without neglecting review sessions. By incorporating breaks and flexibility, it also prevents burnout, making study sessions more productive and sustainable.

#5. Counterargument Generator

Prompt:
“Provide three strong counterarguments to the following perspective: [insert argument]. Each counterargument should be logical, well-supported, and address potential weaknesses in the original claim. Avoid strawman arguments and instead focus on real, credible objections. If possible, include examples or evidence to strengthen each point.”

Explanation:
Critical thinking isn’t just about defending your own position—it’s about understanding and addressing opposing viewpoints. This prompt helps students develop stronger arguments by forcing them to consider counterarguments and refine their reasoning. Whether for a debate, an essay, or a class discussion, recognizing alternative perspectives makes arguments more persuasive and well-rounded. Instead of blindly defending a stance, students learn to anticipate challenges and respond with logic and evidence, strengthening their overall reasoning skills.

#4. Text Simplifier

Prompt:
“Rewrite the following text in clear, concise language while maintaining its original meaning. Eliminate unnecessary jargon, complex sentence structures, and overly technical terms. The revised version should be accessible to a general audience without losing important details. Keep the response under [insert word limit] and ensure readability at a high school level.”

Explanation:
Academic writing is often dense and difficult to digest, making it challenging for students to quickly grasp key ideas. This prompt helps break down complex information into straightforward language without oversimplifying critical details. Whether it’s for reviewing difficult readings, paraphrasing for research papers, or making study materials more accessible, this tool ensures that students can understand and communicate ideas clearly. Simplicity isn’t about dumbing down—it’s about making information usable.

#3. Discussion Question Generator

Prompt:
“Generate ten thought-provoking discussion questions on [insert topic]. The questions should encourage critical thinking, analysis, and debate rather than simple yes/no answers. Ensure a mix of conceptual, ethical, and real-world application questions to deepen understanding. Avoid generic or overly broad questions, focusing instead on specific angles that spark meaningful discussion.”

Explanation:
Engaging in classroom discussions isn’t just about speaking—it’s about asking the right questions. Strong discussion questions push beyond surface-level answers and encourage deeper analysis. Whether preparing for a seminar, leading a study group, or refining an argument, this prompt helps students generate meaningful questions that drive insightful conversations. It forces them to think beyond memorized facts and into the realm of interpretation, debate, and application—where real learning happens.

#2. Academic Jargon Translator

Prompt:
“Rewrite the following passage in clear, everyday language without losing its meaning. Maintain accuracy while eliminating unnecessary jargon, overly complex vocabulary, and convoluted sentence structures. Ensure that the revised version is understandable to someone without a background in the subject, but still retains the key concepts. If necessary, provide a simple example to illustrate difficult ideas.”

Explanation:
Professors and researchers often write in ways that feel like decoding a secret language. While technical terms have their place, they can make learning harder when concepts get buried under unnecessary complexity. This prompt helps students strip away the clutter and focus on what truly matters: understanding the core ideas. Whether it’s a confusing textbook passage, a dense research paper, or an academic journal article, this tool ensures that students can actually absorb the material—without spending hours deciphering it.

#1. Professional Email Composer

Prompt:
“Write a professional email to [insert recipient] regarding [insert topic]. The email should be clear, concise, and respectful, maintaining a formal but approachable tone. Include a polite greeting, a direct explanation of the purpose, and a specific request or question. Ensure proper grammar and formatting, avoiding overly casual language or unnecessary details. If appropriate, conclude with a call to action and a professional closing statement.”

Explanation:
Communicating effectively with professors, advisors, and peers is a critical skill in university—and one that many students struggle with. A poorly written email can come across as unclear, unprofessional, or even disrespectful. This prompt ensures that messages are well-structured, polished, and to the point. Whether asking for an extension, clarifying an assignment, or requesting feedback, this tool helps students sound professional while maintaining a friendly and respectful tone. In academic and professional settings, the way you communicate matters, and this prompt makes sure you get it right.

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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February 2, 2025
Black History Month (Mutabaruka)

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February 2, 2025