Category: Students

  • Academic judgement? Now that’s magic

    Academic judgement? Now that’s magic

    Every day’s a school day.

    In my head, I thought I understood the line between what counts as “academic judgement” and what doesn’t in cases, processes, appeals and complaints.

    It matters because my understanding has long been that students can challenge and appeal all sorts of decisions – right up to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) in England and Wales – but not if the decision is one that relates to matters of academic judgment.

    Thus in a simplistic coin sorter, “this essay looks like a 2:1 to me” can’t be challenged, but “they’ve chucked me out for punching someone when I didn’t” can.

    I’ve often wondered whether the position can hold when we think about the interaction between consumer protection law – which requires that services be carried out with reasonable skill and care – and this concept of unchallengeable academic judgement in the context of workloads.

    Back in the halcyon days of Twitter, I’d regularly see posts from academic staff bemoaning the fantasy workload model in their university that somehow suggested that a 2,000 word essay could be read, graded and fed back on in 15 minutes flat.

    Add in large numbers of assignments dribbling in late via extensions and accommodations, the pressure to hit turnround times generated by the NSS question, wider workload issues and moderation processes that look increasingly thin (which were often shredded or thinned out even further during the marking boycotts), and I imagined a judge evaluating a student’s case to say something along the lines of “to deploy your magic get out jail free card, sunshine, you’ll need to have used more… care.”

    But that’s about an academic judgement being made in a way that isn’t academically defensible. I had a conversation with an SU officer this afternoon about academic misconduct off the back of a webinar they’d attended that OfS ran on AI, and now I’m more confused than ever.

    Do not pass go

    The bones first. The Higher Education Act 2004 mandated a body that would review complaints to replace the old “visitor” system, and it includes a line on what will and won’t qualify as follows:

    A complaint which falls within subsection (1) is not a qualifying complaint to the extent that it relates to matters of academic judgment.

    The concept is neither further defined nor mentioned anywhere else in UK law – but has deep roots. In medieval universities scholarly masters enjoyed autonomous assessment rights, and it gained legal recognition as universities developed formal examination systems during the Enlightenment period.

    By the 20th century, academic judgment became legally protected from external interference, exemplified by landmark cases like Clark v. University of Lincolnshire and Humberside (2000), which established that courts should not intervene in academic assessments except in cases of procedural unfairness:

    This is not a consideration peculiar to academic matters: religious or aesthetic questions, for example, may also fall into this class. It is a class which undoubtedly includes, in my view, such questions as what mark or class a student ought to be awarded or whether an aegrotat is justified.

    The principle that most understand is that specialised academic expertise uniquely qualifies academics to evaluate student performance and maintain educational standards, free from political or economic pressures.

    The OIA takes the line in the legislation and further defines things as follows:

    Academic judgment is not any judgment made by an academic; it is a judgment that is made about a matter where the opinion of an academic expert is essential. So for example a judgment about marks awarded, degree classification, research methodology, whether feedback is correct or adequate, and the content or outcomes of a course will normally involve academic judgment.

    It also helpfully sets out some things that it doesn’t consider fall into the ambit:

    We consider that the following areas do not involve academic judgment: decisions about the fairness of procedures and whether they have been correctly interpreted and applied, how a higher education provider has communicated with the student, whether an academic has expressed an opinion outside the areas of their academic competence, what the facts of a complaint are and the way evidence has been considered, and whether there is evidence of bias or maladministration.

    I’m not convinced that that “what’s in, what’s out” properly considers or incorporates the consumer protection law issue I discuss above – but nevertheless it hangs together.

    In his paper on whether the concept will hold in an era of consumerism, David Palfreyman argues that academic judgment properly applies to subjective assessments requiring specialised expertise – grading student work, designing curriculum, and evaluating learning outcomes.

    Educational institutions and courts generally consider these issues beyond external scrutiny to protect academic freedom and professional autonomy – because academics possess unique qualifications to make nuanced, context-dependent judgments about academic quality that outside parties lack the expertise to evaluate effectively.

    On the other side of that see-saw, he argues that academic judgment should not shield factual determinations, procedural errors, or administrative decisions from review. When institutions make claims about whether they properly applied their own rules, or failed to follow fair procedures, these issues fall outside protected academic judgment.

    Religious or aesthetic?

    But then back in the OIA’s guidance on its scheme rules at 30.4, there’s this curious line:

    Decisions about whether a student’s work contains plagiarism and the extent of that plagiarism will normally involve academic judgment, but that judgment must be evidence based.

    If that feels like a fudge, it’s because it is. “Whether” feels like a significantly different concept to “extent of that”, insofar as I can see how “did you punch the student” is about weighing up facts, but “how much harm did you cause” might require an expert medical judgement. But in a way, the fudge is topped off with that last sub-clause – what the OIA will insist on if someone uses that judgement is that they’ve used some actual evidence.

    And if they haven’t, that then is a process issue that becomes appealable.

    The problem here in 2025 is that 30.4 starts to look a little quaint. When someone was able to say “here’s one student’s script, and here’s another” with a red sharpie pointing out the copying, I get the sense that everyone would agree that that counts as evidence.

    Similarly, when Turnitin was able to trawl both the whole of the internet and every other essay ever submitted to its database, I get the sense that the Turnitin similarity score – along with any associated reports highlighting chunks of text – counts as evidence.

    But generative AI is a whole different beast. If this blog over-used the words “foster” and “emphasize”, used Title Case for all the subheadings, and set up loads of sentences using “By…” and then “can…”, not only would someone who reads a lot of essays “smell” AI, it would be more likely to be picked up by software that purports to indicate if I have.

    That feels less like evidence. It’s guess work based on patterns. Even if we ignore the research on who “false flags” disproportionately target, I might just like using those phrases and that style. In that scenario, I might expect a low mark for a crap essay, but it somehow feels wrong that someone can – without challenge – determine whether I’m “guilty” of cheating and therefore experience a warning, a cap on the mark or whatever other punishment can be meted out.

    And yes, all of this relates back to an inalienable truth – the asynchronous assessment of a(ny) digital asset produced without supervision as a way of assessing a students’ learning will never again be reliable. There’s no way to prove they made it, and even if they did, it’s increasingly clear that it doesn’t necessarily signal that they’ve learned anything when they did.

    But old habits and the economics of massification seem to be dying hard. And so in the meantime, increasing volumes of students are being “academically” judged to have “done it” when they may not have, in procedures and legal frameworks where, by definition, they can’t challenge that judgement. And an evaluation of whether someone’s done it based on concepts aligned to religion and aesthetics surely can’t be right.

    Cases in point

    There’s nothing that I can see in the OIA’s stock of case summaries that sheds any light on what it might or might not consider to count as “evidence” in its scheme rules.

    I don’t know whether it would take as its start point “whatever the provider says counts as evidence”, or whether it might have an objective test up its sleeve if a case crossed its desk.

    But what I do know is just how confusing and contradictory a whole raft of academic misconduct policies are.

    The very first academic misconduct policy I found online an hour or so ago says that using AI in a way not expressly permitted is considered academic misconduct. Fair enough. It also specifies that failing to declare AI use, even when permitted, also constitutes misconduct. Also fair enough.

    It defines academic judgement as a decision made by academic staff regarding the quality of the work itself or the criteria being applied. Fair enough. It also specifically states that academic judgement does not apply to factual determinations – it applies to interpretations, like assessing similarity reports or determining if the standard of work deviates significantly from a student’s usual output. Again, fair enough.

    But in another section, there’s another line – that says that the extent to which assessment content is considered to be AI generated is a matter of academic judgement.

    The in-principle problem with that for me is that a great historian is not necessarily an LLM expert, or a kind of academic Columbo. Expertise in academic subject matter just doesn’t equate to expertise in detecting AI-generated content.

    But the in-practice problem is the thing. AI detection tools supplying “evidence” are notoriously unreliable, and so universities using them within their “academic judgment” put students accused of using AI in an impossible situation – they can’t meaningfully challenge the accusation because the university has deemed it unchallengeable by definition, even though the evidence may be fundamentally flawed.

    Academic judgements that are nothing of the sort, supported by unreliable technology, become effectively immune from substantive appeal, placing the burden on students to somehow prove a negative (that they didn’t use AI) against an “expert judgment” that might be based on little more than algorithmic guesswork or subjective impressions about writing style.

    Policies are riddled with this stuff. One policy hedges its bets and says that the determination of whether such AI use constitutes academic misconduct is “likely to involve academic judgement”, especially where there is a need to assess the “extent and impact” of the AI-generated content on the overall submission. Oil? Water? Give it a shake.

    Another references “academic judgment” in the context of determining the “extent and nature” of plagiarism or misconduct, “including the use of AI” – with other bits of the policy making clear that that can’t be challenged if supported by “evidence”.

    One I’m looking at now says that the determination of whether a student has improperly used AI tools is likely to involve academic judgement, particularly when assessing the originality of the work and whether the AI-generated content meets the required academic standards. So is the judgement whether the student cheated, or whether the essay is crap? Or, conveniently, both?

    Set aside for a minute the obvious injustices of a system that seems to be profoundly incurious about how a student has come to think what they think, but seems obsessed with the method they’ve used to construct an asset that communicates those thoughts – and how redundant that approach is in a modern context.

    Game over

    For all sorts of reasons, I’ve long thought that “academic judgement” as something that can be deployed as a way of avoiding challenge and scrutiny is a problem. Barristers were stripped of their centuries-old immunity from negligence claims based on evolving expectations of professional accountability in the 2000s.

    In medicine, the traditional “Bolam test” was that a doctor was not negligent if they acted “in accordance with a responsible body of medical opinion” among their peers But a case in the nineties added a crucial qualification – the court must be satisfied that the opinion relied upon has a “logical basis” and can withstand logical analysis.

    Or take accountancy. Prior to 2002, accountants around the world enjoyed significant protection through the principle of “professional judgment” that shielded their decisions from meaningful challenge, but the US Congress’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act radically expanded their liability and oversight following Arthur Andersen’s role in facilitating Enron’s aggressive earnings management and subsequent document shredding when investigations began.

    Palfreyman also picks out architects and surveyors, financial services professionals and insurance brokers, patent agents and trademark lawyers, software suppliers/consultants, clergy providing counseling services, and even sports officials – all of whom now face liability for their professional judgments despite the technical complexity of their work.

    As Palfreyman notes in his analysis of the Eckersley v Binnie case (which defined the standards for “reasonable skill and care” for professionals generally), the standard that a professional “should not lag behind other ordinarily assiduous and intelligent members of his profession” and must be “alert to the hazards and risks” now applies broadly across professions, with academics sticking out like a sore, often unqualified thumb.

    Maybe the principle is just about salvageable – albeit that the sorry state of moderation, external examining, workload modelling and so on does undermine the already shaky case for “we know better”. But what I’m absolutely sure of is that extending the scope of unchallengeable decisions involving “academic judgement” to whether a student broke a set of AI-misconduct rules is not only a very slippery slope, but it’s also a sure fire way to hasten the demise of the magic power.

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  • Reimagining readiness in Indiana education

    Reimagining readiness in Indiana education

    Key points:

    Across the country, education is on the brink of significant change. As schools, districts, and policymakers grapple with the realities of a rapidly evolving workforce that requires discipline-specific knowledge, high-tech know-how, and hands-on skills, there is a growing recognition that the traditional approaches to preparing students for the real world no longer suffice. 

    This shift brings uncertainty and anxiety for district leaders here in Indiana. Change can be intimidating, especially when the stakes are as high as the future success of our students. Yet, this moment also holds immense potential to redefine what it means to truly ready them for a workplace that is continually reinventing itself.

    To confront the challenges future-focused schools face, we’re sharing our approach from two distinct, but complementary, perspectives. One, from the superintendent of Eastern Hancock Schools, a small, rural district in Indiana that is deeply rooted in its community and focused on creating opportunities for students through strong local partnerships. The other, from the president and CEO of Project Lead The Way (PLTW), a national nonprofit organization that provides schools with innovative, hands-on, project-based STEM curriculum designed to develop critical skills and knowledge, while preparing students for careers beyond the classroom. 

    While we work in different contexts, our shared mission of preparing students and educators for an ever-changing world unites us. Together, we aim to highlight the excitement and possibility that change can bring when approached with readiness and purpose.

    Redefining what it means to be ready

    The jobs of tomorrow will demand far more than technical knowledge. As industries transform at warp speed, accelerated by AI, automation, and other technological advancements, many of today’s students will enter careers that don’t yet exist. 

    Preparing them for this reality requires educators to focus on more than just meeting academic benchmarks or prepping for the next standardized test. It demands fostering critical thinking, collaboration, communication skills, and, perhaps most importantly, confidence–characteristics many employers say are lacking among today’s graduates.

    At Eastern Hancock, this preparation begins by creating opportunities for students to connect their learning to real-world applications. The district’s robust work-based learning program allows juniors and seniors to spend part of their day in professional placements across industries, such as construction, healthcare, engineering, and education, where they receive hands-on training. These experiences not only provide exposure to potential careers but also help students develop soft skills, including teamwork and problem-solving, that are critical for success in any field.

    We also know that when students have earlier access to STEM learning and concepts, they are more inclined to pursue a STEM-driven career, such as computer science and engineering. Students in PLTW programs tackle meaningful problems as capable contributors, such as designing prototypes to address environmental issues, exploring biomedical innovations, and solving arising problems like cybersecurity and information safety.

    Preparation, however, is about more than providing opportunities. Many students dismiss career paths because they lack the self-assurance to see themselves thriving in those roles. Both Eastern Hancock and PLTW work to break down these barriers–helping students build self-esteem, explore new possibilities, and develop confidence in chosen fields they may have once considered out of reach.

    Empowering educators to lead with confidence

    While students are at the heart of these changes, educators are the driving force behind them. For many teachers, however, change can feel overwhelming, even threatening. Resistance to new approaches often stems from a fear of irrelevance or a lack of preparation. To truly transform education, it is essential to support teachers with the resources, tools, and confidence they need to thrive in evolving classrooms.

    PLTW’s professional development programs equip educators with training that builds their capacity to lead transformative learning experiences. Teachers leave PLTW sessions with practical strategies, a renewed sense of purpose, and the self-assurance to inspire their students through immersive classroom experiences.

    At Eastern Hancock, the promise of growth drives efforts to support educators through professional development that aligns with their goals and the district’s vision. Teachers collaborate to set meaningful objectives, fostering a culture of innovation and shared purpose. This approach ensures that educators feel prepared not only to guide students but also to grow alongside them.

    Blending a local approach and national reach illustrates how schools and organizations at every level can work together to address the shared challenge of preparing and supporting educators for the future. By empowering teachers with the tools and confidence they need, both Eastern Hancock and PLTW demonstrate how readiness can ripple outward to transform entire communities.

    Delivering on the promises of education

    Indiana’s reimagined graduation requirements offer schools the chance to redefine what it means to be truly prepared for the future. At Eastern Hancock, we’ve seen how aligned values–like those we share with PLTW–can inspire new ways of thinking about career readiness. We’re both deeply committed to ensuring students are equipped with the skills, experiences, and confidence they need to thrive in an unpredictable world.

    Change may cause anxiety, but it also creates opportunities for innovation, growth, and excitement. When educators, students, and communities embrace readiness, the future of education becomes a source of hope and possibility-for Indiana and for the nation.

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  • Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    It’s hard to learn if you’re ill – good health is one of the classic prerequisites to learning.

    But one of the most frustrating things about the debate around student health in the UK is that there isn’t one.

    Anecdotally, poor access to preventative healthcare and health services tends to be justified either by NHS pressure from an ageing population or by expectations that universities should do more with less.

    Both arguments have merit, but they leave the crucial link between health and academic success stuck in that Spiderman meme, while the public and the press blames students for “boozing it up” or “inventing ADHD.”

    Mental health is well, almost over-researched – but health concerns for students go far beyond the usual talking points. Gonorrhoea diagnoses are at record levels, with the UK Health Security Agency identifying students as a key factor, drugs are the subject of many a survey, disordered eating among students is largely ignored, and sleep deprivation seems to be an issue. Some surveys say dental issues are increasingly common – as one expert notes, “dental health is mental health.”

    The question is whether any of these issues are unique to students – and to the extent to which they are, what sorts of policy interventions might address them.

    In the latest wave of Belong, our polling partnership with Cibyl (which our subscriber SUs can take part in for free), we examined everything from general health perceptions and healthcare access to specific areas like sleep quality, alcohol consumption, sexual health confidence, and experiences with the NHS.

    The results come from our early 2025 wave, with responses from 1,055 students across 88 providers. The data has been weighted for gender and qualification type (undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and postgraduate research) to ensure representativeness. There’s also analysis of various free-text questions to illustrate what’s going underneath the headline results.

    Yeah, I’m OK

    First of all, we asked students a standard question used in national surveys asking them to rate their own health. Only 20 per cent of students rate their health as “very good” compared to 48 per cent of the general population.

    Combined figures show that while 61 per cent of students report “good” or “very good” health (compared to 82 per cent in the general population), a full 32 per cent describe their health as merely “fair” – nearly two and a half times the rate in the general population.

    Qualitative comments illuminate what lies beneath. Many students clearly differentiate between their physical and mental wellbeing:

    My physical health is generally good, whereas I have faced some struggles in mental health (which can also at times impact my physical health).

    Physical is usually good but sometimes a little bit hungry after trying to save some food for other days. Mentally I am ok but I don’t fill very fulfilled.

    My physical health is immaculate however my mental health is the worst it’s ever been.

    Several respondents directly connected their health status to the pressures of university life:

    Could be better, I’m finding learning incredibly stressful as part of a full-time job.

    Almost died from an overdose of caffeine trying to work on a essay and had two breakdowns.

    Feel very tired due to uni, aware my health could be better, but do not have the time.

    For others, university has provided structure and support:

    Being at uni has helped me focus more on my self care and mental health to improve

    My health is generally good because I prioritise self-care, balance my studies, part-time work, and rest, and use available support when needed.

    Many respondents described their health as variable and requiring ongoing management:

    I am physically keeping fit, mental health I am working on, some days are better than others.

    My everyday health is a constant battle that I have to take a multitude of medications. I have good days and bad days and am lucky if I get a decent amount of sleep.

    Everyone gets their bad days and good.

    A significant number of students also reported living with chronic physical health conditions or disabilities:

    I’m disabled. I always feel bad.

    I am a full time wheelchair user with ME and fibromyalgia, so I am in a lot of pain and fatigue.

    I had a diagnosis of a rare cancer called Leiomyosarcoma in 2023. The cancer has gone but it’s left me with a whole range of health problems.

    Overall, the narrative accounts reveal complexity – where mental and physical wellbeing are often experienced differently, academic pressures can both harm and support health, daily fluctuations in health status are common, and chronic conditions create persistent challenges that require constant navigation of university life.

    Correlations or causations?

    We wanted to know if there are relationships between health and key elements of student experience. The data shows strong correlations between student health perceptions and their sense of belonging – among students reporting “very good” or “good” health, 85 per cent feel part of a community, compared to just 68 per cent among those reporting “bad” or “very bad” health:

    This pattern extends to whether students feel free to speak – 93 per cent of those with better health feel free to express themselves, compared to only 77 per cent of those reporting poorer health conditions:

    On teaching quality, 91 per cent of students with “very good” or “good” health report positive teaching quality, while 84 per cent of students with “fair,” “bad,” or “very bad” health still rate teaching quality positively:

    Correlation is not causation – though it’s technically possible that poor teaching or poor belonging is making students ill, to the extent that the free text offers clues, it suggests that the causation is the other way around – poor health appears to be robbing students of the ability to take advantage of the academic and social opportunities on offer.

    Are you registered?

    The good news in our polling is that most students (93 per cent) are registered with a GP. The problem is that only 65 per cent are registered near their place of study. A quarter (25 per cent) remain registered elsewhere in the UK, while five per cent maintain registration in another country:

    The qualitative comments reveal several distinct reasons for not registering locally. Many students commute to university and maintain their home GP registration:

    Because I don’t live at uni. I commute. So it would make sense to have my GP in my home town

    As I do not live on campus, it is easier for me to stay registered with my GP, who is closer to home.

    Even students who do live at university often cite proximity to home as a reason not to change registration:

    It’s only an hour to my home town so easier just to stick with them.

    Don’t feel I live far enough away from home to register with another GP.

    Continuity of care emerges as another significant concern:

    If I sign up for a local GP here, I would be de-registered from my home GP. Since I prefer to stay with my home GP for continuity of care and I only need healthcare support when I’m at home, I haven’t registered with a GP at uni.

    Because I am waiting for talking therapies which I can only get if I am registered with a GP in Somerset so registering in Plymouth will take me off of the waiting list.

    I have been on a waiting list for migraine treatments in my home town and don’t want to start again and wait even longer.

    Home GP knows about my disabilities and there back history.

    And some students express concerns about quality of care:

    They are useless.

    I’ve heard some horror stories about the GP here, and when my friend was too sick to eat or sleep, they wouldn’t even talk to her.

    Dental registration shows a more concerning pattern, with a third of students (33 per cent) reporting they are not registered with a dentist at all. Only 17 per cent are registered near their place of study, while 31 per cent maintain registration elsewhere in the UK and 12 per cent in another country:

    Despite the low registration rate, 56 per cent report having had a dental check-up in the past 12 months – almost identical to rates found in the general population, although that’s hardly a corks-popping moment for the country.

    Students cite NHS availability and cost as major barriers:

    There is no NHS dentist available in the county!

    There are no dentist mine is private.

    NHS is underfunded so it’s impossible to access these services. Private dentists are unaffordable.

    It is literally cheaper for me to travel to my country for a dentist appointment where there is healthcare than doing it here.

    Many students also note that dental appointments can be scheduled during visits home:

    Dental care is something that is tended to like every 6 months or so. So it makes sense to just keep the appointments whenever I am back home.

    Only visit once every 6 months so can plan to go home when the appointment is approaching.

    As with GP services, commuting students typically maintain their home dentist:

    I commute rather than live on campus, so it was more convenient to stay with my dentist closer to where I live.

    Loyalty to existing dentists also emerged as a significant factor:

    I’m with an NHS dentist at home and I don’t want to lose my NHS dentist by moving to a different one as it’s difficult to find NHS dentists.

    I go home enough to see my home dentist who has known me for 20 years.

    Can’t get no

    In early April, the long-running British Social Attitudes survey told us that public satisfaction with the NHS had hit a new low – just 21 per cent said they were satisfied with the NHS in 2024, with waiting times and staff shortages the biggest concerns.

    So we wanted to know what students think. In our polling nearly half (49 per cent) reported being either “very dissatisfied” (12 per cent) or “quite dissatisfied” (37 per cent) with the NHS. In contrast, only 31 per cent expressed satisfaction, with a mere three per cent indicating they are “very satisfied”:

    Many respondents expressed frustration with the difficulty of getting appointments and lengthy waiting times:

    12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment.

    It takes too long to get anything sorted.

    I have waited long periods to have health checks and it has taken months to get in to see anyone.

    Can’t seem to get a same day appointment.

    A significant number attributed NHS problems to systemic underfunding:

    It is underfunded, there is too much stress on all the services so they can’t take care of patients properly.

    It’s massively underfunded and unsupported by the government. The Tories ripped it to shreds.

    As an international student I pay £776 for this shit shower, joke of a country really is.

    It isn’t the fault of the nurses, doctors hospital staff etc. It’s that the NHS is criminally underfunded.

    Many highlighted specific concerns about mental health services:

    You have to be attempting to kill yourself for the NHS to help you with mental health problems.

    I’m diagnosed with anxiety and it’s been the worst mistake of my life I wish I just kept it between me and my therapist they don’t listen to a word I say.

    The NHS cannot take the strain of the sheer number of mentally ill young people.

    Mental health services and waiting times just to have initial appointments are terrible.

    Respondents also expressed frustration with a lack of communication between different parts of the system:

    Nobody talks to each other and waiting lists are long.

    Lack of communication between hospitals, staff members within the same hospital.

    Less continuity of staff – like you’re on a conveyor belt passed along looking at the surface issue – not the deeper.

    Long waiting times and lack of communication between various departments. Over complicated administration processes.

    And some had specific concerns about the quality of care they received:

    When I went to an emergency dentist in the UK, they left something in my tooth that rotted and I had to have the tooth removed.

    I’ve been to 4 different hospitals about my knee which keeps dislocating and popping. They don’t care to be honest.

    A male consultant kept refusing to answer my questions before a medical procedure and complained when I refused to let him touch me.

    I feel like I treat myself rather than being treated.

    Drugs, alcohol and food

    Plenty of press stories surround the idea that Gen Z is more likely to be clean living and teetotal than previous generations. Our polling suggests that 26 per cent of students never consume alcohol – a slightly higher abstention rate than the general adult population, where according to the latest NHS data 19 per cent report not drinking in the past year.

    For those who do drink, consumption patterns are distributed across different frequencies:

    This pattern suggests lower regular drinking among students compared to the general adult population, where 48 per cent report drinking at least once a week. When students do drink, most report moderate consumption (the below graph only includes those who indicated they drink):

    It’s worth noting that 7 per cent of respondents chose not to answer the question about quantity consumed, which may indicate some hesitancy to report higher levels of consumption.

    We also asked about drugs – specifically asking students about illegal drugs or prescription drug misuse within the past month. The results show that a small minority of students (seven per cent) reported using illegal drugs or misusing prescription medications in the past month, a rate much lower than is often perceived.

    Back in 2023 we also carried out polling on disordered eating amongst students, having spotted some pilot polling that the ONS did on the issue the previous year. Little has changed.

    In the ONS work, our 2023 poll and this wave, we used the SCOFF questionnaire – a validated screening tool for detecting potential eating disorders – to assess students’ relationships with food and body image. The results show concerning patterns:

    • Nine per cent reported making themselves sick because they felt uncomfortably full
    • 26 per cent worried they had lost control over how much they eat
    • Eight per cent reported significant weight loss in a three-month period
    • 19 per cent believed themselves to be fat when others said they were thin
    • 19 per cent reported that food dominates their life

    When these responses are analysed according to SCOFF scoring criteria:

    • 49 per cent showed no sign of possible issues (compared to 50 per cent in the ONS national sample)
    • 25 per cent demonstrated possible issues with food or body image (compared to 23 per cent in ONS)
    • 24 per cent showed possible eating disorder patterns (compared to 27 per cent in ONS)

    The findings suggest that the UK student population closely mirrors national trends in disordered eating and problematic relationships with food and body image. The particularly high percentage of students who worry about losing control over eating (26 per cent) and who perceive themselves as fat when others say they’re thin (19 per cent) – and the relationship we found between those issues and mental health in 2023 – suggest significant work to yet be done, that could have very positive impacts.

    No snooze, you lose

    Sleep and rest is a huge part of health. Our results show a mixed picture over quality and quantity. While 47 per cent of students report “very good” (10 per cent) or “fairly good” (37 per cent) sleep quality, nearly a quarter (24 per cent) describe their sleep as “fairly poor” (15 per cent) or “very poor” (nine per cent). More than a quarter (28 per cent) fall into the middle category of “neither good nor poor.”

    When it comes to sleep duration, half of students (50 per cent) report getting six to seven hours of sleep per night on average, with an additional 26 per cent getting eight to nine hours. However, a concerning 21 per cent are sleeping fewer than six hours per night, with 20 per cent getting just four to five hours and one per cent less than four hours.

    The findings show a potential improvement compared to the polling we carried out a year ago, which found students were getting just 5.4 hours of sleep per night on average. Our current data suggests a higher proportion of students are now achieving six-plus hours of sleep – but it’s still not nearly enough.

    The 2024 exercise saw strong relationships between sleep duration and both life satisfaction and anxiety levels. Students getting 8-8.9 hours of sleep reported significantly higher life satisfaction scores (6.9 versus the average of 6.3) and lower anxiety scores (4.7 versus the average of 5.0) compared to those sleeping less.

    Students in that survey clearly recognised the importance of sleep:

    I need more sleep!

    Could probably do with more sleep, just trying to get 8 hours a week would be nice.

    But the qualitative data highlighted several factors affecting student sleep patterns:

    • Academic pressures: “Currently, the workload is too big.”
    • Employment demands: “Being in my overdraft monthly, long hours at work cuts into my sleep time.”
    • Irregular timetables: “What would help? A more consistent timetable.”

    Housing a problem

    Governments love their public policy silos – but one of the things SUs wanted us to look at was the relationship between housing and health. In this data, nearly half of respondents (49 per cent) reported that housing does affect their health – with 27 per cent noting a positive impact and 22 per cent experiencing negative effects:

    Many students reported health concerns related to poor physical conditions in their accommodation:

    Student houses have mold and have usually been untouched from when they were bought 12 years prior. My house has plenty of mold which no doubt hasn’t helped things when I have been unwell.

    I live in a very mouldy flat that I have to spray at least once a fortnight to tackle the mould. It is damp and mouldy, but the landlord just tells me to open a window.

    My window doesn’t open and was reported to reception before I even arrived in September I have gone back to report it to them multiple times and they still haven’t done anything about it. I also do not have an extractor fan which works in my bathroom this means I have no airflow in my room.

    Housing affordability emerged as a significant stressor affecting mental health:

    Every year when my rent is rised it impacts my mental and physical health hugely as it causes me a lot of stress and forces me to cut things that make me feel better.

    It’s Cornwall so the housing situation is abysmal… Landlords and estate agents take advantage of this to a disgusting degree and overcharge students to the point of spending all or the vast majority of your student loan just on rent.

    After rent I have no money. Landlords know how much student loans we get and scalp accordingly.

    The social environment created by housemates significantly influences mental wellbeing, with both positive and negative experiences reported:

    My flatmates are incredibly unclean and disrespectful.

    My housemates are rude and disrespect and leave a mess everywhere and they smoke weed despite me asking them to stop loads. It makes me not want to be at home.

    Although on the positive side:

    My housemates are lovely people to talk to and I get along with them really well.

    I love my housemates, we cook and eat dinner together every day and it’s nice to just hang out.

    Insecurity about housing arrangements creates significant stress:

    I rent privately, so the expensive rent combined with low-quality housing and anxiety around the permanence of my home significantly affect my anxiety.

    I recently had my housing group fall apart and will need to give my ESA up to a friend of my partner in Essex due to inability to find student housing that will allow me to keep her.

    Landlord left us with no heating or hot water for 2 months.

    And some students reported significant benefits from supportive housing environments:

    It has been beneficial moving out of a toxic home environment. I have become very close with a few of my flatmates here.

    I recently got my own place after being in a house where I was abused. It’s more difficult financially but at least I don’t have someone else hurting me on purpose.

    I have found moving to a house away from campus with people I am close with has had a positive effect due to the home/uni balance I now have.

    It’s another classic silo issue. The failure of any of the four governments to cobble up a student housing policy is a housing issue – but it’s also an educational issue and a health issue. And because it’s a student issue, it ends up being an issue that is not handled or planned as an issue by anyone. And so it just gets worse every year.

    Not so free periods

    We were also asked to look at menstruation and sexual health. On the former, the results suggest that most respondents find menstrual products reasonably accessible – save for an important minority:

    When asked whether menstruation impacts their daily life, respondents were fairly evenly split:

    The relatively even division suggests that menstruation-related challenges continue to affect a significant proportion of the student population, potentially influencing their academic performance, social engagement, and overall university experience.

    Then on sexual confidence and health, the results show generally high levels of self-reported confidence:

    The standout is that approximately 18 per cent lack confidence in accessing NHS sexual health services – the highest area of uncertainty among those surveyed.

    The findings present an interesting contrast to a 2021 HEPI survey on sex and sexual health among students. That research found significant variations in consent understanding and confidence levels, particularly when examining school background and gender.

    In that work, privately educated males were a key issue:

    • Only 37 per cent felt “very confident” in understanding what constitutes sexual consent (compared to 59 per cent of students overall)
    • Only 34 per cent were “very confident” in how to communicate sexual consent clearly (versus 47 per cent overall)
    • Only 41 per cent were “very confident” in how not to pressure others for sex (versus 61 per cent overall)

    Our polling in this wave doesn’t have a large enough sample to offer similar demographic breakdowns, but the overall high confidence levels suggest either an improvement in students’ understanding since 2021 or – importantly – potential overconfidence in self-assessment.

    For better or worse

    Finally, we wanted to know whether students’ health had changed since coming to university. While 39 per cent reported their health has improved (with three per cent saying “much better” and 36 per cent “better”), 27 per cent indicated their health had worsened (23 per cent “worse” and four per cent “much worse”) – and a significant proportion (34 per cent) chose not to respond to this question.

    Many students reported deteriorating mental health since beginning their studies:

    Mental health has declined and physical health/pain got worse as well.

    Academic pressure has made me feel depressed.

    My mental health is no better and I have panic attacks at least two times a week.

    Anxiety levels are higher, I feel socially overwhelmed after a day at uni.

    Financial pressures emerge as a significant factor negatively impacting both physical and mental wellbeing:

    I can’t afford a lot of things. I struggle to buy food period products, and other healthcare. I’m inclined to work when I’m sick because I need to cover tuition and rent.

    I can’t afford basic nutrition.

    Many students reported having less time or opportunity for physical activity:

    Too tired to workout/run most days.

    I feel I have less time to exercise. I spend more time on a computer which affects my hands and back.

    I was much more physically active before starting university.

    Changes in eating habits were commonly mentioned as negatively affecting health:

    My diet is a lot worse, and I tend to be generally less healthy.

    I put on a lot of weight due to staying in my room all day and not having enough money to afford a good diet.

    As I am now living alone, so my eating issues have become worse as I am the one to control what I eat – so I will eat nothing for a month, and then gain all the weight back by giving up and binging.

    It’s not all bad news. For those in the “improved” camp, increased physical activity (“I’ve been going to the gym since first year and have really enjoyed doing so”), better nutrition habits (“I have more control and time over my diet”), improved mental wellbeing (“Well at collage I was suicidal but at uni I don’t really have that inkling anymore”), greater autonomy over health choices (“Being more independent and in control of my life has done wonders for my physical and mental health”), and beneficial routines (“The routine has enabled me to keep in touch with my health a lot better”) were all key themes.

    The positive experiences suggest that for a significant proportion of students, university can provide both the freedom and structure to develop healthier lifestyles and improved wellbeing.

    If it was up to me

    When, at the end of the survey, we asked students what they would change about health services if it was up to them, they offered a wealth of practical suggestions.

    Mental health services emerged as a top priority, with clear calls for “more therapy sessions,” “expanded mental health services,” and “shorter waiting times or support whilst on waiting lists.” Many emphasised the need for greater coordination: “Less pressure to do so well academically. Student union need to put more pressure on the uni to allocate funds towards mental health services.”

    Financial barriers to health featured prominently in student concerns. Suggestions included “lowering the cost of the university gym,” “free prescriptions till you finish uni,” and broader recommendations to “improve student finance so that students can afford to eat healthily.”

    Improving access to NHS services was another key theme, with students recommending “a GP on campus perhaps or someone you can talk to before having to go to the GP” and “easier GP registration, shorter wait times for appointments.” Some highlighted specific needs for marginalised groups: “Fast tracking marginalised students who are already forced through forms and waiting list just to access their healthcare.”

    Sexual and reproductive health resources were frequently mentioned, with calls for “free condoms across campus,” “free period products,” and “more information about sexual health/like events centred around that, including sexual health for trans people and using inclusive language.”

    Many also stressed the need for better information and outreach, suggesting “having a known place to access in a casual manner,” “health advice given in more accessible areas,” and “making clear where and how to access it with a focus on helping international students navigate a new system.”

    And several comments addressed broader cultural and systemic issues: “Stop encouraging mid-week drinking, university alcoholism culture is insane”, “More conversations about loneliness, it’s weirdly normalised at uni” and “Address systemic bias in medicine, especially impacting women.”

    An agenda for change

    There are bits of good news – but the big picture that emerges from our findings is stark and troubling. 20 per cent of students reporting “very good” health compared to 48 per cent in the general population is a disparity that would prompt immediate intervention in any other population group. But that problematic place in the policy Venn that students are in – both largely young and belonging to DfE, not DHSC – leaves them ignored. This student offers a damning indictment of a system where basic physiological needs compete with academic demands:

    I literally went to university at the wrong time with how much it currently costs. It’s impossible to concentrate on my studies without the constant fear of how am I going to eat tonight.

    Another speaks of “black mould and damp” while their landlord’s sage advice is to “open a window.” Is this really the backdrop against which we expect student success to happen?

    The data reveals a healthcare system fundamentally misaligned with student life realities. Only 65 per cent are registered with a GP where they study, just 17 per cent with a local dentist. And why should they bother? With 49 per cent expressing dissatisfaction with NHS services – “12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment” – the friction in accessing care hardly seems worth the effort. That we ask international students to pay for it is even more scandalous.

    The answers lie partly in our addiction to departmental silos and short-term thinking. No Westminster department champions students as a distinct population with specific health needs deserving of targeted interventions. Universities focus on student retention while the NHS prioritises acute care – and students fall through the gap between.

    The South African model of mandatory health modules covering mental, physical and sexual wellbeing offers an interesting approach – yet here we continue treating student health as an afterthought rather than a core educational function, something else that used to be developed in the gap between lectures that’s now filled with the demands of long commutes and punishing part-time work.

    What might a solution look like? Perhaps it starts with recognising that today’s “horizontal generation” won’t respond to top-down health messaging. Their peer networks and digital platforms represent not just challenges but opportunities for intervention. Digital solutions that personalise support, peer-to-peer health models, and practical education around cooking and nutrition align with how today’s students actually engage with information. But there’s another critical factor – our lack of comprehensive national data on student health.

    The current patchwork of institution-specific surveys and occasional national sampling is simply inadequate. How can we design effective interventions without a robust, longitudinal understanding of student health patterns? A dedicated national student health and wellbeing survey – tracking mental health, food insecurity, nutrition, sleep patterns, and their impact on academic outcomes – isn’t a luxury, it’s a fundamental prerequisite for evidence-based policy. Surely the NSS could take a year off every few years?

    Then when it comes to delivery, the answer won’t be found in Whitehall but in our regions and cities. Manchester’s integrated approach to student mental health – where university health services, local NHS trusts, and city council public health teams collaborate on shared priorities – demonstrates what’s possible when student health is approached as a citywide asset rather than an institutional burden. It should both be broadened beyond mental health, and replicated.

    And whatever is done really needs to be underpinned by rights – encompassing dual GP registration, affordable healthcare, timely disability diagnosis, health-supporting university policies, and integrated NHS partnerships.

    The alternative is to continue watching talented students struggle unnecessarily, their potential diminished by preventable health challenges. A student eating so poorly they “can’t afford basic nutrition” or sleeping in accommodation where “mould grew on my campus room’s walls before I even came in” isn’t just experiencing personal discomfort, they’re living the consequences of policy failure – and paying for it, in more ways than one.

    You can download the full deck of our findings from this Belong tranche on student health here.

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  • Democracy lives in the daily life of our university

    Democracy lives in the daily life of our university

    It was quite the paradox really.

    Sat in a glorious space in Lisbon specifically designed for groups of students to organise events where they can eat (inexpensively) and talk together, we met a Medical student leader from Portugal and a Pharmacy student leader from Moldova who were both thinking hard about their future.

    The first thing we noticed was how refreshing it was to meet student leaders from healthcare backgrounds – in systems where self-governing faculty and school communities are nurtured and valued, talented students from a broad range of disciplines go on to become policy actors that can change universities, communities, countries and even continents.

    Freedom of movement had allowed Valeria to pursue both a bachelor’s and master’s in Pharmacy at the University of Lisbon – something that a funding system had helped her switch to after completing a first year in Human Resources management. But given the economic situation back home, she feels real pressure to stay.

    Meanwhile Sofia – in the process of combining being a city-wide student leader with completing her fifth year in medical school – was looking at salaries for doctors across the EU and the world, and was wondering whether Portugal could ever offer the career conditions that would allow her to practice comfortably.

    In the demographic midwinter

    Portugal has a particularly acute version of a problem impacting countries across Europe, including the UK – a so-called demographic winter that combines a growing proportion of pension-age people that need to be supported by the tax revenues of a shrinking number of working-age people.

    Around 30 per cent of young Portuguese people now live and work abroad, representing the highest emigration rate in Europe – and Portugal’s TFR (total fertility rate), the average number of children born per woman, has remained stubbornly below the replacement level of 2.1 since the 1980s.

    It all creates a hugely difficult feedback loop – fewer young workers means declining tax revenues, which constrains public investment in services that might otherwise entice them to stay, which then prompts more to leave.

    That means that governments need immigration – but despite political pleas to value diversity as an extension of the European ideal, the pace and volume of that immigration, coupled with the ageing of the electorate, then emboldens far-right parties like Portugal’s Chenga! (“Enough!”) – which has gone from securing just 1.3 per cent of the vote and a single seat in the Assembly of the Republic in 2019 to just under 20 per cent of the vote and 50 seats last year.

    Despite Brexit ending formal freedom of movement with the EU, we are of course experiencing our own internal migration patterns that mirror these issues. Graduates from economically disadvantaged regions consistently flow toward London and other major economic hubs, rarely returning to their hometowns. Our internal “brain drain” exacerbates demographic decline in already struggling regions, with rural areas, post-industrial towns, and coastal communities particularly affected.

    The prospect of university campus closures in our demographically challenged regions threatens to accelerate this pattern – creating a parallel to Portugal’s feedback loop but on a national scale. Without coordinated government planning to create and retain talent in these areas through strategic investment, improved infrastructure, and meaningful employment opportunities, the UK risks a deepening divide between its prosperous urban centres and increasingly hollowed-out regions and towns.

    Educating them to leave

    To get birth rates up, back in January we’d heard how Hungary’s populist President was implementing a pronatalist strategy using education policy – offering student loan forgiveness for female graduates who have children after studies, with full debt cancellation for mothers of three+ children, as well as lifetime income tax exemptions for women with four+ children.

    But even if you set aside the politics of programmes like that, the big question is whether they work. Having previously offered returning expatriates tax reductions of up to 70 per cent for five years – 90 per cent for those relocating to the economically disadvantaged south – in Italy Giorgia Meloni’s government has been forced into a dramatic retreat, citing the unsustainable €1.3 billion annual cost and limited evidence of efficacy.

    It puts all Portugal’s higher education sector in real difficulty. Both student and university leaders know that modernised higher education and skills systems are central to any country’s economic future. But if the expenditure involved only ends up boosting the Netherlands’ or Germany’s economies, sustaining low fees and circa 50 per cent participation rates will get harder and harder.

    Just over a year ago, the centre-right minority coalition led by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the CDS People’s Party (CDS–PP) responded with a multi-year graduate tax holiday – workers aged 18-26 (up to 30 for master’s/PhD holders) qualify for income tax exemptions over five years, and additional benefits exist for graduates moving to rural areas through the “Incentivo à Fixação de Jovens no Interior” program, including extra tax deductions and housing support.

    But the benefits are pretty small when weighed against the rising cost of living, especially in major cities – base salaries remain uncompetitive, and they don’t fix the country’s acute housing problem, which sees students, graduates and migrants fighting for substandard housing in a country whose tourism-dependant economy has tended to turn much of its cities’ property portfolio into holiday lets.

    And following the collapse of the coalition earlier this year, a fresh general election is to be staged – and pretty much all of the country’s student groups have the cost and availability of housing as a top priority.

    What goes on tour

    It was one of the many issues we ended up discussing on our two-day study tour to Portugal, where 30 UK student leaders (and the staff that support them) traversed Lisbon, Coimbra, Barcelos and Porto to build connections, share ideas and identify solutions to the problems besetting both students and the higher education systems in which they are partners.

    So many of the issues faced by students sounded familiar – the obvious difference each time being that at least the Portuguese government is trying.

    Its National Higher Education Accommodation Plan (PNAES) launched in 2022, and aims to deliver over 18,000 new student beds by 2026 with a €486 million investment. Then in September 2024, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s “Student Accommodation Now” emergency programme added 709 beds, and a €5.5 million credit line was established for universities to secure additional housing – all because the failure to provide housing “frustrates people’s efforts” and “stifles their ability to develop their talent”. The Prime Minister put it like this:

    It is repugnant, from a civic point of view, that a student can battle for twelve years to enter higher education, only to find they cannot attend because they have nowhere to stay near the institution that accepted them.

    In one of the groups I was in, one of the student leaders asked us what our own politicians had said about student housing and its role in educational opportunity, and what was in our countries’ student housing strategies. Our delegates’ faces turning blank, I had to admit that the the closest we’d got to a plan back home was former minister Robert Halfon repeatedly saying that it wasn’t his problem and was actually students’ fault:

    …the government has no role in the provision of student accommodation…applicants who require student accommodation should take its availability into account when making decisions about where to study.

    Housing isn’t the only thing they’ve been working on in Portugal. In 2022, the government set up an independent commission to evaluate the implementation of its Legal Framework for Higher Education Institutions (RJIES) – their equivalent to England’s Higher Education and Research Act.

    Led by an 8-person panel that included two student reps, the commission’s recommendations included the creation of a single, consolidated legal instrument – a Statute for higher education students – that would define their rights and duties clearly and comprehensively, standardise protections across all institutions, and recognise the diversity of student profiles (including student workers, student parents, and students in volunteer roles).

    Mental health was also prioritised – the Commission recommended strengthening support through dedicated student mental health services integrated into broader academic and social support strategies, and the revised RJIES now explicitly includes a duty for higher education institutions to contribute to student wellbeing, and specifically mentions their responsibility to guarantee mental health services. Universities will be also expected to hit psychologists:students ratios.

    The Commission found that while student participation is formally recognised, in practice it can be marginal or symbolic – and recommended ensuring real, effective participation of students in institutional governance (General Councils, Academic Senates, Scientific and Pedagogical Councils), strategic planning processes, and evaluation and quality assurance activities.

    The resulting arrangements will strengthen student voting power significantly – in the overhauled election process for rectors and presidents, students will hold at least 20 per cent of the weighted voting power.

    And the new law explicitly details the competencies and election process for student ombudspeople – Portugal introduced university-level complaints adjudication in 2007 to tip the balance towards students, and will now mandate consistency in the role and broader student participation in their election.

    Given the distance (both in time and governance) of the OIA from students and their problems, and the sorry state of independent adjudication in Scotland and NI, we really do now feel miles behind as a country on student rights protection.

    Binary, but not a divide

    After a visit to the (very) student city of Coimbra, the bus rolled into the Barcelos campus of the Polytechnic of Cávado and Ave – Portugal’s newest public higher education institution. IPCA had been formed as part of a national strategy to expand and decentralise higher education in Portugal – with regional provision aimed at driving regional development and addressing the need for skilled professionals in emerging industries.

    The student leaders we met both from IPCA’s SU and FNAEESP (the National Federation of Polytechnic Higher Education Student Associations) were exercised about RJIES reform – partly because the status of polytechnics had become a key issue in the debate.

    We tend to bristle at mentions of a binary divide, but Portugal maintains one – and FNAEESP reps were clear in their position, firmly favouring preservation with what they called “sharper clarification” to ensure polytechnics maintained their focus on vocational, technical education and practice-oriented research.

    They also pushed for a “symmetrical structure” where both types of institutions would face equivalent requirements without compromising their distinct missions:

    The polytechnic sector isn’t asking to become something it’s not… we’re asking for recognition of what we already are – institutions providing high-quality technical and professional education that drives regional development.

    When we explained that our abolition of the binary had happened over thirty years ago, one of the reps perceptively asked us if that had raised the profile of the provision, or just hidden it. When we then explained the way in which large parts of the UK’s politics seem to ignore the technical and professional provision on offer in the sector – centring their critiques about “too many students at university” in assumptions about what a “university” is – we got a wry smile.

    The upshots in Portugal are that the binary divide will be maintained but made more flexible, allowing polytechnics that offer doctoral programs to adopt the title “Polytechnic University” while preserving their focus on advanced technical education and applied research for regional development.

    That will come with stricter requirements – including improved staff-to-student ratios (one PhD holder per 20 students instead of 30) and a broader range of degree offerings that maintain an applied, professional focus – and the updated RJIES framework will preserve the distinctive applied mission, partly to maintain public understanding and support for the investment that part of the system needs.

    The price of chips

    Even in huge universities like the University of Lisbon, the previous evening we’d seen a similar commitment to the prominent status of technical education. Opposite Team Wonkhe’s hotel was Técnico, which we’d only realised was the university’s Science and Technology faculty when leafing through a strategy brochure. The brand police would never let that happen in the UK.

    Its stunning Alameda campus is located at the top of the hill overlooking Fonte Luminosa, and was designed just as António de Oliveira Salazar’s Estado Novo regime was keen to build symbols of national pride and progress.

    But during the dictatorship, the SU building had become a central hub for meetings, discussions, and coordination of resistance to the authoritarian government – which forced anyone who wanted to work in academia to be vetted by the political police, who had the right to arrest anyone deemed to be against the regime.

    For a long time higher education had not been an instrument for growth or for people to improve their lives and prospects, but was about maintaining the hegemony of the ruling upper class. Even when Estado Novo eventually opened up universities to a broader range of the population, centres of research were created outside the universities so that young people would not get any new ideas.

    Fernando Rosas, one of the founders of the socialist party Bloco de Esquerda, recalls 4 December 1968, when students broke into a building and had a “political picnic” to protest against the terrible food in the cafeteria:

    That day, I woke up politically. Until then I had not been interested in such matters. But I heard the speeches about nutrition and the colonial wars, became an activist and later one of the leaders of the student union… what we in the student union did was part of the foundation of the military movement that then led to the revolution. We trained them to be engineers but also taught them to fight for freedom.

    Photos up around the building tell the tales of struggles to end daily oppression, ensure universal access to education, healthcare, and political rights, and build a fraternal, inclusive and participatory society. After the Carnation Revolution at Tecnico, students’ votes carried equal weight to teachers, with student groups collectively voting on grades despite teacher assessments being reduced to suggestions:

    We gained freedom to design our own curricula and research without fear of imprisonment or censorship.

    Today the demonstrations might be gone, and on Thursday’s evidence we can’t say that the food has got much better – but the spirit of democracy lives on. Reforms to the curriculum at Tecnico introduced amidst austerity (which we look at elsewhere on the site here) focus on interdisciplinarity and student choice, with student associative activity – sharing power with eachother and with the university – embedded carefully into every level of the student experience, from programme to faculty to university to city to country to continent.

    At the central university level, three of Lisbon’s values are familiar – intellectual freedom and respect for ethics, societal innovation and development, and social and environmental responsibility – but when we spoke with vice-rector João Peixoto, a less familiar fourth emerged as something just as important:

    Students are part of the power system – they have a say, they have votes, and we cannot ignore them…democratic participation is not just something we say; it’s something we do, every day, in every council, with every voice heard.

    Students across the university have voting rights, sit on councils, shape curricula, and deliver through students’ associations a large part of what we’d give a professional services department to “provide” – not as guests or consumers, but as citizens of the university community:

    Our history reminds us: students fought for democracy in Portugal, and today, they still have a seat in deciding its future.

    The way that culture had paid forward into the future culture of the country was vivid in Portugal’s history. That culture’s relative weakness, dismissal and continued erosion in the UK’s system should cause us to worry a lot about our future.

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  • Trump Administration Reverses Course on International Student Status Terminations

    Trump Administration Reverses Course on International Student Status Terminations

    In a significant policy reversal, the Trump administration has begun restoring the legal status of international students whose records were terminated in recent weeks, according to statements made by a Justice Department attorney during a federal court hearing in Oakland, California on Friday.

    Elizabeth D. Kurlan, representing the Justice Department, informed the court that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reactivating student records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) system while developing “a framework for status record termination” to guide future policies.

    The abrupt reversals began Thursday afternoon when international students and university administrators across the country discovered that many previously terminated records had been unexpectedly restored in the system.

    “It’s like somebody flipped a light switch on,” described Jath Shao, a Cleveland-based immigration attorney representing affected students.

    The policy change follows weeks of controversy after the administration began revoking visas and terminating the legal status of thousands of international students, particularly targeting those who had participated in political activism or had previous legal infractions such as DUIs.

    Higher education institutions have reported varying degrees of reinstatement. At the University of California, Berkeley, 12 of 23 affected international students have had their SEVIS records restored. Similar partial reinstatements have been reported at Rochester Institute of Technology and by attorneys representing students across multiple states.

    Despite this development, significant concerns remain for international student populations. Legal experts also caution that terminated status records, even if reinstated, could potentially jeopardize future applications for permanent residency or other immigration benefits.

    According to the Justice Department, ICE will continue to maintain authority to terminate records for legitimate violations of nonimmigrant status or other unlawful activity under the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, ICE will not terminate statuses solely based on findings in the National Crime Information Center, a computerized criminal history database that had been used to justify many of the recent terminations.

    For higher education institutions, which rely heavily on international student enrollment for both academic diversity and financial stability, the policy reversals offer temporary relief while raising questions about the stability of immigration policies affecting campus communities.

    Shao characterized the development as “a small but positive one” while emphasizing that more comprehensive protections are needed to ensure international students’ security within U.S. higher education institutions.

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  • Real inclusion is there for the taking

    Real inclusion is there for the taking

    Life with a disability or chronic condition is inconsistent.

    On good days, personal and professional obligations are met, and a reasonable, if not uninterruptedly good, quality of life is enjoyed – there is the mental and physical capacity to interact with others.

    On bad days, the limitations suddenly imposed lead to frustration, and obligations narrowly met, if at all.

    Interacting with others outside the immediate family is impossible, constituting a demand on personal resources which are fully deployed just trying to make it through the day.

    As a disabled researcher, staying motivated while pursuing an academic course lasting for several years while at the whim of fluctuating health conditions can be a complex and often lonely process.

    In my experience, trying to communicate this reality to colleagues and providers is met with compassion initially.

    However, a more comprehensive response over time to the shifting sands of life with a disability is often lacking. This is redolent of how professionals react to change in the workplace, when it is introduced at a strategic level – when long-established processes and systems are in place, lip service is paid to new initiatives but in reality, says psychologist John Fisher:

    …people maintain operating as they always have denying that there is any change at all.

    When everyone says – and often mean – “Poor you”, but then carry on regardless, this does little to enhance motivation for the disabled colleague for whom being at the mercy of their condition is a real, and lasting, psychological drain.

    Making a difference

    So what can a higher education provider do to reduce this sense of being a burden, and bolster motivation for disabled students, researchers and colleagues?

    David McClelland advances the theory that people are motivated by achievement (n-ach), by authority (n-pow) or by affiliation (n-affil) to varying degrees, and says the responsibility lies with the organisation to create the right conditions to motivate, arguing convincingly that:

    …any behavioural outcome is a function of determinants in both the person and the environment.

    This means that the responsibility rests with the organisation to provide optimum conditions for every individual to be motivated and to perform, and this is an on-going process – not a once-yearly day of “awareness” for a particular condition.

    The 21st of March is World Down Syndrome Day, but does sending our children to school in odd socks really transform people’s thinking about the condition? Disability support should be a strategic, year-round priority which informs the culture of organisations – and shouldn’t higher education providers, as the ultimate symbols of knowledge and understanding in our society, be leading the way?

    This is not to say that changing any organisation’s culture is a quick or an easy process. Noel Tichy and Stratford Sharman identify three crucial steps which must be followed by strategic leaders seeking transformation – “awakening; envisioning; re-architecturing”.

    The awakening stage involves a crucial shift from complacency in the status quo, by creating a shared understanding that the establishment cannot and should not continue in its current incarnation and needs to evolve. In the case of disabled colleagues, this deep understanding of the changes needed can only be achieved in consultation with those who are experiencing – first-hand and over time – the issues with the working environment and the general approach towards disability support.

    Making this a “whole organisation” approach to consultation can be an opportunity to promote understanding and integration between disabled and non-disabled colleagues; research has found this to be:

    …particularly powerful in bringing about change as it removed the onus from the individual and avoided disabled people being singled out.

    While many universities have initiatives and working groups to consult with, and support, disabled students, researchers and staff, the socio-political landscape within which we are all immersed is impossible to ignore.

    The current toxic, divisive rhetoric about people claiming sickness and disability benefit, and how they are costing the hard-working taxpayer too much money, could not be further from the positive vision of whole-organisation consultation on disability support.

    The cuts to benefits which were announced by the government last month have resulted in widespread alarm amongst the disabled community – Scope says they constitute “a catastrophe for disabled peoples’ living standards and independence”.

    The recent statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that “taxpayers are paying millions more for the cost of failure” through “spending on working age sickness and disability” actively promotes resentment and social division between those who can work, and those who cannot.

    Universities can change communities

    Against this backdrop of blame and misinformation, it is difficult for those of us with disabilities to feel that we are not viewed by at least some individuals as burdensome and problematic. However, in the absence of a cultural shift coming into universities from society, perhaps university-led initiatives can begin to build cultures which will, over time, impact their local communities.

    “Access Insights”, a project by Disabled Students UK, encapsulates this idea beautifully in their tagline, “We believe in the power of disability wisdom to better society”.

    They recognise that disabled students have a deep understanding of how accessibility can be achieved in the university environment and offers institution-specific recommendations to universities who become Access Insight members. Using a evidence-based approach, they consult with disabled students to evaluate their experiences and pinpoint what is going well, as well as what needs to be improved.

    In the same way, it is only via consultation with the disabled community and a shift in mindset away from “us and them” to “all of us together” that true accessibility in society can be achieved.

    The higher education landscape has a responsibility to set the tone and the approach to disability awareness and support – the Access Insight model provides a blueprint for how organisations can begin to consult on, and take accountability for, their strengths and weaknesses in relation to disability support.

    For me as a disabled student, I have a responsibility to speak up and show my university how they can make my course truly accessible; and my university has the responsibility to listen and to respond.

    The question now is – can there be a wider impact for communities and society, if higher education providers demonstrate what truly inclusive environments could look like? The answer is out there for the taking – one conversation, one blog piece, at a time.

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  • Understanding the commuter student paradox

    Understanding the commuter student paradox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Choose Life

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

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

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

    Image of three bar charts outlining workload and travel by commuter status.

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

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

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

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

    Choose work

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Choose commuting

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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  • What if students were the architects of their own success?

    What if students were the architects of their own success?

    What if the best student support service universities could offer haven’t been designed yet – all because the right students weren’t in the room?

    It’s an unsettling thought, especially for those of us who have worked within the sector with hopes of improving student wellbeing, success, and engagement.

    But it’s a question I kept circling back to during my own Master’s dissertation – on how higher education leaders can empower student success through student support services.

    Despite evidence of dedicated and passionate staff, adequate funding, and strategic frameworks, students still reported gaps – not just in service delivery, but in how those services are conceived.

    The issue isn’t just operational, it’s philosophical.

    Going from “we provide” to “we build together”

    Higher education has made important strides in expanding student services – from wellbeing hubs and learning support, to financial aid and disability access. But often, these services are still created for students, rather than with them.

    Student feedback is collected after implementation, student leaders are invited to steering groups halfway through, and students are asked for “input” on final drafts rather than on the first blank page.

    But that’s not co-creation – it’s consultation with extra steps.

    When we move beyond ticking the “student voice” box and start sharing power, from the ideation stage to ongoing evaluation, something transformative happens – services become relevant, not just available.

    Across the Irish and UK sectors, we talk a good game about partnership. But authentic representation often struggles against institutional muscle memory – senior committees with unclear roles for student reps, siloed support departments, and legacy systems where “that’s just how it’s always been done.”

    And yet, higher education institutions that embed structured co-creation into their DNA show what’s possible.

    At the University of Helsinki, students sit on nearly every working group — not just tokenistically, but as equal contributors in shaping the academic experience. In the Netherlands, the concept of the “student assessor” has placed students at the heart of university governance.

    In Australia, institutions have embedded co-design into their equity and access strategies, involving students from underrepresented backgrounds in shaping services intended for them. Closer to home, UCL’s Student ChangeMakers programme enables students to co-lead improvements in pedagogy, assessment, and support services.

    Even in smaller institutions, we see creative approaches – from peer-led mental health initiatives in Scotland to course review panels in Irish colleges where students shape curriculum content and feedback systems in real-time.

    These aren’t add-ons – they’re rewiring the system to trust students as partners, not recipients. And it works.

    Co-design works

    When students co-design support services, they’re more likely to use them, to trust them, and to champion them among peers.

    One of the strongest themes that emerged from my own research was just how often students didn’t engage with services because they weren’t designed with their realities in mind.

    I’ve found mature students balancing work and care responsibilities, students with disabilities navigating inaccessible booking systems, international students who couldn’t find help that reflected their unique needs, and online learners who found support hyper-focused towards traditional campus-based students.

    We don’t need another awareness campaign – we need services designed with lived experience at the core. Co-creation isn’t just about collaboration, it’s about expertise – the kind students bring simply by surviving and succeeding in today’s higher education and societal landscape.

    It’s not a radical thought to think a first-year commuter student might have better insights into timetabling conflicts than a senior manager does.

    If we want student support services to meet the moment, leaders have to ask the hardest question of all – what decisions am I willing to share?

    Because real co-creation means giving away control. Not all of it, not recklessly – but deliberately and structurally. It means students co-chairing steering groups. It means budgets ringfenced for student-led initiatives. It means evaluation that includes student-led metrics of success, not just institutional KPIs.

    And it means recognising that students are not a problem to be solved, but a resource to be repurposed.

    As we continue to navigate one of the worst cost-of-living crises we’ve ever seen, post-pandemic recovery, and mounting mental health concerns, the temptation is to invest in more services, faster solutions, and slicker technology. But what if the most impactful thing we can do is pause – and ask students to build it with us?

    Co-creation isn’t a buzzword. It’s a strategy for relevance, equity, and resilience.

    And if we’re serious about empowering student success, it’s time we stopped building services around students – and started building them with students.

    How might it work – and what could it change?

    Reimagining support means starting with different questions: What if students didn’t have to search for help — what if help found them? What if every staff member saw themselves as part of the support system, not just those with “student services” in their title? What if wellbeing wasn’t its own office, but a value that lived in curriculum design, assessment timelines, and space planning?

    There’s no one model, and that’s the point. At some universities, it might mean tearing down departmental silos and creating shared case management teams. In others, it could mean radically overhauling communication with students — ditching ten disconnected emails for one meaningful touchpoint, co-designed with students for students.

    It could mean integrating student advisory roles across academic faculties/schools, or giving SUs shared governance over support strategy, not just representation on working groups.

    It could even be as bold as adopting a ‘universal design’ approach to all student services — where we build systems for the most marginalised, and in doing so, make them better for everyone.

    The change isn’t just structural — it’s cultural, philosophical. When students see that their experience and input drives institutional decisions, not just fills out end-of-semester surveys, something shifts. Trust deepens. Engagement rises. The story students tell about their university begins to change — from “I had to figure it all out” to “they built this with us in mind.”

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  • Programs like tutoring in jeopardy after Linda McMahon terminates COVID aid spending extensions

    Programs like tutoring in jeopardy after Linda McMahon terminates COVID aid spending extensions

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    HVAC projects to improve indoor air quality. Tutoring programs for struggling students. Tuition support for young people who want to become teachers in their home communities.

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  • Data shows growing GenAI adoption in K-12

    Data shows growing GenAI adoption in K-12

    Key points:

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    Almost 3 in 5 K-12 educators (55 percent) have positive perceptions about GenAI, despite concerns and perceived risks in its adoption, according to updated data from Cengage Group’s “AI in Education” research series, which regularly evaluates AI’s impact on education.  

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