Part of the point of having a regulator focused on students, rather than – say – a funding council or a department, was always about acting in “the student interest” rather than, say, the “provider” interest.
But ever since HEFCE started talking about “the student interest” back when it made the Quality Assurance Agency bid to become its quality assurance agency, there’s always been a vague sense that “the student interest” is only ever really definable by reference to what it isn’t, rather than what it is.
Can you define “a seminar”? Maybe not. Is 150 people in a room “a seminar?” Nope. And so on.
In theory, once you know what “the student interest” actually is, you can then embed it into regulatory priority setting, regulatory design and regulatory activity.
It’s a laudable principle, but as the idea hit reality it turned out that the sheer diversity and complementarity of student interests are not easily understood or quickly realised.
As the Office for Students (OfS) has dealt with “monster of the week” framings of freedom of speech and grammar in assessment, a common criticism has been that student interest has been “ventriloquised” to back (sometimes questionable) ministerial priorities.
And in areas where the body it has been using to define the student interest has gone against the views of ministers – for example on decolonisation and inclusive curricula – there appears to have been a concerning tendency to silence competing voices.
Have students historically been able to trust OfS to advocate for their interests? It’s not entirely clear. The publication of new research into student priorities is therefore supposed to centre aspects of the authentic student voice within regulation and policy.
Research findings
OfS has worked with polling companies and conducted its own surveys and focus groups to gather information. Sources include:
- Polling conducted by Savanta (1,761 students and graduates)
- Two online focus groups conducted by YouGov
- A YouGov online survey (750 responses) with prospective students, current students and graduates
- An online focus group with students from small and specialist providers, arranged with the support of GuildHE
- The Office for Students Student Panel
Though this is a fair amount of evidence, OfS is clear that what is presented is a snapshot – the interests and priorities of students will evolve in future. The outputs from this exercise have helped to shape the recent OfS strategy – future strategic thinking would need to be shaped by more recent examples of this kind of engagement.
The research is presented in four themes, covering student experiences and expectations, the idea of students as consumers, student interests in the long and short term, and the relationship between the student interest and the public interest.
As presented, each section offers headline findings and key results from polling followed by a range of illustrative quotes from individual students.
Students expect a high quality education that “reflects their financial investment and the promise that was made to them” – this includes opportunities to engage in social and extra-curricular activities. Academic and personal needs should be supported, and students also expect opportunities that will help their future careers.
Yougov polling found that 79 per cent of undergraduates believed that university had either met or exceeded their expectations – 91 per cent felt they would end up with a credible qualification, 90 per cent felt they would leave with credible knowledge of their subject area.
In contrast students do not feel they have received sufficient one-on-one support from staff, and have experienced disruption from the Covid-19 restrictions on activity and industrial action. More widely, the cost of living has had an impact on studies (60 per cent of students polled by Savanta agreed) – students were clear there is insufficient financial support available. And there is a persistent feeling that tuition fees are too high – 60 per cent felt their degree represented value for money.
Specific issues have included difficulties in finding suitable and affordable accommodation, and a lack of mental health support for those who need it. Savanta polling suggested that 28 per cent of undergraduates felt contact hours had been insufficient to support their learning, 32 per cent of undergraduates had issues with the way their course has been taught, and 40 per cent said that one of the three biggest influences on their success was financial support.
I was promised x amount of hours in person and I wasn’t able to due to strikes/Covid. Online lectures/seminars were not fruitful at all. (Male, 23, graduate, YouGov focus group)
You can’t do anything without your health and with the stress that can come with the intense study and financial restraints of university life it is particularly important that the university supports students so they can maintain good wellbeing. (Male, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
Lots of different things can influence student interests. Cultural differences can mean some students might need varying levels of support to properly enjoy university life. Socioeconomic backgrounds for example can require that students will have an interest in needing either more financial support or the ability to balance part time work with studies.’ (Female, 23, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
As signalled over the summer, students as a whole do not like the term “consumer”, feeling that the term implied education could be bought rather than acquired through personal effort. That said, there was an identification with the idea of “student rights” – both in terms of promises being met and access to refunds.
And the idea of students as “investors” in their education was not viewed favourably either – students don’t consider their financial contribution as a choice, preferring to think about how they invest their time and effort.
Students are not really given consumers rights, as seen by Covid year students who want money back. If you are given a false promise … there should be a way to complain … but [there] is not really. (Female, 18, further education student, YouGov focus group)
It is much more difficult to complain, and essentially impossible to claim a refund. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
I have a right to get what I was expecting when I signed up for the degree… This means having teaching provision in line with what was advertised. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
There is a slight preference (60 to 40 per cent) for a provider focus on long-term rather than short-term student interests.
By “short term”, students mean their day-to-day experiences – so stuff like academic support, progression and success, costs of living, and mental well being. “Long term” interests extend beyond graduation, revolving around career preparation and progression, skills for employment, and networking.
I think in the short-term, academic and pastoral support with exams and coursework deadlines is most important, as well as general support with aspects of student life such as managing finances, finding accommodation etc. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
For me long-term encompasses the whole of the time I spend at university and then the years after where my degree affects my career progression etc. (Female, 23, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
You’ll have spotted that there’s less information in these sections as we go on – the last one gives another inconclusive split – according to students, providers should focus on delivering student benefits (66 per cent) rather than public benefits (36 per cent).
There were “a number of perceived conflicts” between student and public interest – these were “related” to tuition fees and accommodation, but we are not told what they are precisely.
From the focus group quotes we can deduce that there is a public interest in developing graduates. The public interest may be to minimise student debt, while individual students might benefit by not paying off loans – the public might not like student accommodation blocks in city centres, while students do.
That these hang off a mere handful of focus group quotes is frustrating and limits the usefulness of the insights. That “provider interest” is missing is also frustrating – plenty of students will argue with themselves and each other about the extent to which their personal interests can conflict with those of “the university”.
I think a long-term interest of developing inquisitive, interested graduates who want to continue to learn about and critically analyse the world around them is an incredibly important part of a robust society. (Female, 33, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
Student debt is a clear conflict of interest between students and the public interest. It is in the public interest to minimise student debt as a lot of it is not paid off by the students, however an individual student is benefiting by not paying off their student loans. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
Student accommodation is another example. Generally, members of the public don’t like having large student accommodation blocks built in city centres, however many students would like to live close to university and of course, in a cheaper accommodation. (Female, 20, higher education student, YouGov focus group)
Also frustrating is the extent to which the findings seem to assume that students can’t or won’t consider their community or collective interests – understanding the extent to which, for example, student A is prepared to cross-subsidise student B’s mental health support or more expensive teaching probably matters much more than knowing who’s thinking short-term or longer-term, when surely pretty much everyone has both rattling around in their head.
So what?
For anyone who works with students, or has met students, none of these findings will come as a huge surprise. There are many formal and informal surveys of students and graduates, and this new research largely acts as a way of reinforcing what is already known.
For critics, not being able to see the underpinning polling data raises all sorts of questions – like what was asked, who was asked, when were they asked it, what the differences were by characteristic or provider type, and how the results were weighted – partly because one way for a regulator to prioritise is by focussing in on those most at risk, or most unhappy, and so on.
It’s also possible to raise an eyebrow at some of the conclusions that OfS Director for Fair Access and Participation John Blake draws from the research. When he says, for example, that he has “discovered” that students have two categories of expectation – one relating to their experiences of higher education (what studying feels like) and the other relating to what it gets them in the future – you are left thinking “well what else would they have expectations about” if not “good job the whole of your quality improvement medals scheme, a review of which involved a shed ton of research with students, also framed things in terms of experience and outcomes”.
It’s possible to have expectations that are too high given OfS’ form, legal remit and the realities of day to day expectations. Jim often notes that while students’ unions will carry out plenty of research into “the student interest”, they’re still going to run a freshers fair, a course rep system and elect some full-time sabbatical officers in March – just as for all the research that providers do on their strategies, they pretty much all still vow to deliver excellent teaching, groundbreaking research, something something knowledge exchange and civic, and something something buildings HR and finance. For all the high blown rhetoric about change on inception, OfS is still a cruise ship not a speedboat.
One thing that does still feel missing is not so much the recognition that diverse students have different priorities and interests – that does come out vividly in Blake’s blog – but that when you have a fixed remit and limited resources, you do have to prioritise. Add in that sometimes diverse interests are opposed, and you then have to set out how and who makes the calls, and then demonstrate that that has impacted what you do and how you do it. You do get the sense that there are passionate people in there who recognise that – but that there’s still a way to go in delivering the old “whole provider strategy” thing inside OfS.
There’s also the partner question. Perhaps the newly souped-up interest board will get to do some of this, but if you take that two-thirds/one-thirds split on student v public interest, the point about student as partner is that they are seen both as capable of holding both thoughts in their head at once, and capable of contributing to a discussion about how you find a way through what can feel like a contradiction. It’s true on freedom of speech v freedom from harm , it’s true on “high academic standards” v “supporting students to succeed”, and true on the often contested balance between student feedback and academic authority. Education is always co-produced, even if one side is young and paying for it and the other “provides” it.
Nevertheless, while eight years in is a bit late to be properly considering how the “student interest” is defined strategically, this is a good start. Over the coming year it says it will share further student insight based on polls and engagement that it has done – that might be on a topic with direct links back into its regulation, or something of regulatory interest to OfS but where it’s not yet planning direct regulation, or unable to act directly. The theory of change is that that sort of information can suggest areas of focus for providers (and while it doesn’t say so, for ministers) and support informed choice by students.
If nothing else, it should allow students and their representatives to test whether the issues they’ve spoken on – on accommodation, on support, on their rights, and on value for money – will be acted on meaningfully by a regulator that is starting to realise just how important keeping promises to students is.
