Tag: Student

  • Effective tools to foster student engagement

    Effective tools to foster student engagement

    Key points:

    In my classroom, students increasingly ask for relevant content. Students want to know how what they are learning in school relates to the world beyond the classroom. They want to be engaged in their learning.

    In fact, the 2025-2026 Education Insights Report vividly proves that students need and want engaging learning experiences. And it’s not just students who see engagement as important. Engagement is broadly recognized as a key driver of learning and success, with 93 percent of educators agreeing that student engagement is a critical metric for understanding overall achievement. What is more, 99 percent of superintendents believe student engagement is one of the top predictors of success at school.

    Creating highly engaging lesson plans that will immerse today’s tech-savvy students in learning can be a challenge, but here are two easy-to-find resources that I can turn to turbo-charge the engagement quotient of my lessons:

    Virtual field trips
    Virtual field trips empower educators to introduce students to amazing places, new people and ideas, and remarkable experiences–without ever leaving the classroom. There are so many virtual field trips out there, but I always love the ones that Discovery Education creates with partners.

    This fall, I plan to take my K-5 students to see the world’s largest solar telescope, located in Hawaii, for a behind-the-scenes tour with the National Science Foundation and Sesame. For those with older grades, I recommend diving into engineering and architecture with the new Forging Innovation: A Mission Possible Virtual Field Trip.

    I also love the virtual tours of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Together as a class or individually, students can dive into self-guided, room-by-room tours of several exhibits and areas within the museum from a desktop or smart device. This virtual field trip does include special collections and research areas, like ancient Egypt or the deep ocean. This makes it fun and easy for teachers like me to pick and choose which tour is most relevant to a lesson.

    Immersive learning resources
    Immersive learning content offers another way to take students to new places and connect the wider world, and universe, to the classroom. Immersive learning can be easily woven into the curriculum to enhance and provide context.

    One immersive learning solution I really like is TimePod Adventures from Verizon. It features free time-traveling episodes designed to engage students in places like Mars and prehistoric Earth. Now accessible directly through a web browser on a laptop, Chromebook, or mobile device, students need only internet access and audio output to begin the journey. Guided by an AI-powered assistant and featuring grade-band specific lesson plans, these missions across time and space encourage students to take control, explore incredible environments, and solve complex challenges.

    Immersive learning content can be overwhelming at first, but professional development resources are available to help educators build confidence while earning microcredentials. These resources let educators quickly dive into new and innovative techniques and teaching strategies that help increase student engagement.

    Taken together, engaging learning opportunities are ones that show students how classrooms learnings directly connect to their real lives. With resources like virtual field trips and immersive learning content, students can dive into school topics in ways that are fun, fresh, and sometimes otherworldly.

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  • UI Bans Considering Race, Sex in Hiring, Tenure, Student Aid

    UI Bans Considering Race, Sex in Hiring, Tenure, Student Aid

    A UIC official said the system made the decision after “considering the increased risk to our faculty and to the University that these criteria present in the current climate.”

    Just_Super/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    The University of Illinois system is telling its institutions they can’t consider race, color, national origin or sex in hiring, tenure, promotion and student financial aid decisions—a move that’s drawn opposition from a faculty union at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

    Aaron Krall, president of UIC United Faculty, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors, said the UI system circumvented shared governance.

    “This was a directive that came down and surprised everyone,” Krall said.

    The system implemented a policy saying it and its universities don’t consider race or the other factors in determining eligibility for need- or merit-based financial aid. In a statement, the system further said it “issued guidance to its universities to ensure that hiring, promotion, and tenure processes follow the same standards.”

    The statement said, “There may be some variation in how and when changes are fully operationalized” across its three universities: UIC, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign. The system didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview Tuesday about why it’s making this change now.

    Krall shared communications that he said UIC officials sent out last week. One, from Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda and others, suggested the student aid change would apply to “donor-funded, college-determined and institutionally funded scholarships” and said “UIC will replace its Affirmative Action Plan with a Nondiscrimination and Merit-Based Hiring Plan.”

    In another message Krall provided, a UIC official wrote that “faculty may no longer submit a Statement on Efforts to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the dossier, nor may faculty members be evaluated on norms related to” DEI. The official wrote that the system “made this decision after carefully considering the increased risk to our faculty and to the University that these criteria present in the current climate.”

    Krall said. “The most shocking thing to me, really, is they want to change the policy and make it retroactive—so we have [affected] faculty members going up for promotion right now who have already submitted their promotion materials.” He said the union has demanded the right to bargain over these changes.

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  • UT Austin Muzzles Grad Student Assembly’s Political Speech

    UT Austin Muzzles Grad Student Assembly’s Political Speech

    The Graduate Student Assembly had planned to consider resolutions against two Texas laws.

    Officials at the University of Texas at Austin blocked the Graduate Student Assembly from considering two resolutions against Texas state laws last week, arguing that the student-run body must follow institutional neutrality policies. 

    Mateo Vallejo, a first-year master’s student and representative in the GSA for the School of Social Work, drafted two resolutions for the assembly to consider: one condemning Texas SB 17, which bans diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Texas public institutions, and another against Texas SB 37, a state law that, among other changes, put faculty senates at public institutions under the control of university presidents and boards. 

    On Oct. 10, GSA president David Spicer submitted the two resolutions to Associate Dean for Graduate Studies Christopher J. McCarthy for approval. According to the assembly bylaws, the dean of students’ office must approve all proposed GSA legislation before it can be considered by the full assembly, effectively giving the office an opportunity to veto, Vallejo explained. Once a bill is submitted to the dean’s office, the assembly cannot make any changes to the text. Vallejo, Spicer and the GSA vice president were careful to follow the bylaws during the drafting process to give administrators as little reason as possible to shut the resolutions down.

    Five days later, McCarthy nixed them.

    “[Vice President for Legal Affairs] considers the legislation to be political speech that is not permitted to be issued by a sponsored student organization in their official capacity,” McCarthy wrote in an email to Spicer, which Inside Higher Ed obtained. “This legislation should not be permitted to go forward.”

    Spicer followed up, asking why the GSA was prohibited from engaging in political speech when others have done so in their official capacity at UT Austin. He pointed to an op-ed by Provost William Inboden in the conservative magazine National Affairs and a statement from University of Texas System Board of Regents chairman Kevin P. Eltife, who said the university was “honored” to be among the institutions “selected by the Trump Administration for potential funding advantages” under Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” 

    “Their speech was on ‘political and social’ matters, so I do not know how they escape the neutrality requirement whereas GSA cannot,” Spicer wrote in his response to McCarthy. In addition, UT Austin’s undergraduate student government recently put out a statement of support for the university’s new president, Jim Davis, which Spicer argued is also political speech. 

    “Like attacks on the Faculty Council, silencing GSA through institutional neutrality is an attack on the notion of shared governance,” Spicer said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “GSA appoints students to university-wide committees and, previously, Faculty Council committees. GSA is the one space at UT Austin where students can voice issues impacting their graduate education.”

    When asked about the double standard, UT Austin spokesperson Mike Rosen told Inside Higher Ed that the resolution in support of Davis is not political speech because he was appointed by a nonpartisan board and not by an elected official. Members of the University of Texas System Board of Regents are appointed by the Texas governor. 

    “UT Austin exercises institutional neutrality consistent with a policy approved by the UT System Board of Regents, which prohibits System institutions from expressing positions on political matters or issues of the day. As a sponsored student organization, GSA acts as an extension of the University and cannot act to cause the University to violate the UT System policy,” Rosen wrote in an email. 

    Vallejo’s resolutions against SB 17 and SB 37 would not be the first attempt by the GSA to address Texas politics. In 2022, the Assembly passed a resolution in response to Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s opinion and Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to the Department of Family and Protective Services that gender-affirming medical care for minors could be treated as child abuse. In its resolution, the Assembly urged campus officials not to adopt that definition for campus reporting purposes.

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  • University of Rochester student expelled after speaking out about harassment will lead orchestra in concert to affirm free expression

    University of Rochester student expelled after speaking out about harassment will lead orchestra in concert to affirm free expression

    ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 20, 2025 — A former doctoral conducting student at the Eastman School of Music who was silenced after reporting harassment by a faculty member is standing up for herself in the way she knows best — by conducting a classical music concert in support of free expression. 

    Rebecca Bryant Novak will conduct a volunteer orchestra at the Hochstein School of Music Performance Hall in Rochester, N.Y., on Thursday, Nov. 20, in a concert sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, our first-ever classical music concert in support of free speech. The evening will feature Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture and selections from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 — two works that faced censorial pressure in their own time and which emphasize the timeless connection between civil liberties and artistic expression. 

    The event will also feature internationally acclaimed violinist Lara St. John, praised by The New York Times as “a high-powered soloist.” 

    For Bryant Novak, who was expelled from the University of Rochester earlier this year after filing a complaint against one of her professors at Eastman, the evening will provide her not only with an opportunity to create wonderful music but to send a message to the school that she will not be intimidated into silence.

    “All I’ve wanted since I came to Eastman was to become a conductor and share my appreciation for great music with others,” Bryant Novak said. “I’m looking forward to doing so this evening — while reminding Eastman that I’m not going away.”

    Shortly into her first semester as a doctoral student in fall 2023, Bryant Novak complained about behavior by a professor who she said made sexist comments.

    After a yearlong investigation, a panel of faculty and administrators agreed that the professor had indeed violated Rochester’s harassment policy and that Eastman’s Title IX coordinator had mishandled her complaint.

    Despite all this, Eastman allowed the same school authorities to retain oversight of Bryant Novak’s academic trajectory — with one official telling her that the school restricted her performance times because of her complaint against the professor. 

    When Bryant Novak complained, Eastman did nothing. As a result of the alleged retaliation, Rochester opened a second investigation into Eastman’s mishandling of the situation in December 2024, and Bryant Novak publicly disclosed the university’s new investigation in a Substack article on Feb. 10.

    Two weeks later, Eastman abruptly expelled Bryant Novak, citing a failure to make academic progress, even though the school never showed that she met that criteria. In doing so, the school ignored its written policy that calls for students to be given ample notice if they are in danger of falling short of academic standards.

    FIRE is calling on Rochester President Sarah C. Mangelsdorf to immediately reinstate Bryant Novak and ensure that she is able to complete her doctorate under the oversight of Eastman faculty and officials who are not already subject to investigation for misconduct in her case. And we’re not alone. Over 800 members of the public have signed on to our Take Action campaign telling Mangelsdorf to heed the call.

    In any case, Bryant Novak won’t be banished from the conductor’s podium. We hope to have you join us for “Outspoken: Music for Free Speech,” an evening championing the right to free expression — hers and yours.

    The concert is free and open to the public. To attend, RSVP here to reserve your spot.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    CONTACT
    Karl de Vries, Director of Media Relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • Act now: Condemn Indiana University’s censorship of student media

    Act now: Condemn Indiana University’s censorship of student media

    TAKE ACTION

    On Oct. 14, Indiana University abruptly fired Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush after he refused to enforce unconstitutional content restrictions on the student paper the Indiana Daily Student. The very next day, IU ordered IDS to halt print publication.

    This illustrates why IU ranked dead last among public universities — and third-to-last overall — in FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings. Firing a student media adviser for refusing to censor a student newspaper, then banning print editions of that paper, sends a message that would chill even the most courageous young journalist: Cover stories we don’t like, and you’ll lose your ability to print — and your faculty support.

    What did the Indiana Daily Student do to provoke this reaction?

    They used their front page to attack IU’s track record on free speech, citing IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee and IU’s ranking as the worst public university in the nation for free speech. In the wake of these stories hitting newsstands, administrators summoned Rodenbush to a meeting to discuss “expectations” for what belongs in the paper. 

    IU’s Media School instructed the student paper to publish an edition exclusively devoted to homecoming flattery with “no other news at all.” When Rodenbush stood his ground, administrators then said they “lost trust” in his leadership — and immediately fired him.

    But public universities can’t order students to publish puff pieces. They can’t shut down newspapers for coverage that makes administrators uncomfortable. And they can’t fire advisers who refuse to play the censorship game. 

    Firing Rodenbush and banning the paper are textbook First Amendment violations that IU claims are part of a digital-first media strategy. But that’s a smokescreen. Cutting the print edition and removing a longtime adviser after critical coverage isn’t a strategy. It’s retaliation. And it’s illegal.

    IU is failing its students, its faculty, and the Constitution it is bound to uphold. FIRE is demanding that IU reverse the print ban, offer Rodensbush reinstatement, and make a public commitment to restore student press freedom on campus.

    Stand with us and tell IU President Pamela Whitten to end this censorship crusade.

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  • Act now: Condemn IU’s censorship of student media

    Act now: Condemn IU’s censorship of student media

    TAKE ACTION

    On October 14, Indiana University abruptly fired Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush after he refused to enforce unconstitutional content restrictions on the student paper the Indiana Daily Student. The very next day, IU ordered IDS to halt print publication.

    This illustrates why IU ranked dead last among public universities — and third-to-last overall — in FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings. Firing a student media adviser for refusing to censor a student newspaper, then banning print editions of that paper, sends a message that would chill even the most courageous young journalist: Cover stories we don’t like, and you’ll lose your ability to print — and your faculty support.

    What did the Indiana Daily Student do to provoke this reaction?

    They used their front page to attack IU’s track record on free speech, citing IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee and IU’s ranking as the worst public university in the nation for free speech. In the wake of these stories hitting newsstands, administrators summoned Rodenbush to a meeting to discuss “expectations” for what belongs in the paper. 

    IU’s Media School instructed the student paper to publish an edition exclusively devoted to homecoming flattery with “no other news at all.” When Rodenbush stood his ground, administrators then said they “lost trust” in his leadership — and immediately fired him.

    But public universities can’t order students to publish puff pieces. They can’t shut down newspapers for coverage that makes administrators uncomfortable. And they can’t fire advisers who refuse to play the censorship game. 

    Firing Rodenbush and banning the paper are textbook First Amendment violations that IU claims are part of a digital-first media strategy. But that’s a smokescreen. Cutting the print edition and removing a longtime adviser after critical coverage isn’t a strategy. It’s retaliation. And it’s illegal.

    IU is failing its students, its faculty, and the Constitution it is bound to uphold. FIRE is demanding that IU reverse the print ban, offer Rodensbush reinstatement, and make a public commitment to restore student press freedom on campus.

    Stand with us and tell IU President Pamela Whitten to end this censorship crusade.

     

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  • Judge Halts UT’s Comprehensive Ban on Student Speech

    Judge Halts UT’s Comprehensive Ban on Student Speech

    SB 2972 was passed after students at several public Texas universities protested the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

    A Texas district court judge on Tuesday ordered the University of Texas system to hold off on enforcing new, sweeping limits on student expression that would prohibit any “expressive activity” protected by the First Amendment between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. 

    “The First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10 p.m.,” wrote U.S. district court judge David Alan Ezra in his order granting the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction. “Giving administrators discretion to decide what is prohibited ‘disruptive’ speech gives the school the ability to weaponize the policy against speech it disagrees with. As an example, the Overnight Expression Ban would, by its terms, prohibit a sunrise Easter service. While the university may not find this disruptive, the story may change if it’s a Muslim or Jewish sunrise ceremony. The songs and prayer of the Muslim and Jewish ceremonies, while entirely harmless, may be considered ‘disruptive’ by some.”

    A coalition of student groups—including the student-run Retrograde Newspaper, the Fellowship of Christian University Students at the University of Texas at Dallas and the student music group Strings Attached—sued to challenge the restrictions, which, in addition to prohibiting expression overnight, also sought to ban campus public speakers, the use of drums and amplified noise during the last two weeks of the semester. The restrictive policies align with Texas Senate Bill 2972, called the Campus Protection Act, which requires public universities to adopt restrictions on student speech and expression. The bill took effect on Sept. 1. 

    “Texas’ law is so overbroad that any public university student chatting in the dorms past 10 p.m. would have been in violation,” said Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in a press release. “We’re thankful that the court stepped in and halted a speech ban that inevitably would’ve been weaponized to censor speech that administrators disagreed with.”

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  • Why mentorship networks are essential in the college admissions process

    Why mentorship networks are essential in the college admissions process

    Key points:

    As the vice president of academic affairs and a member of the admissions committee at SSP International (SSPI), a nonprofit organization offering immersive scientific experiences, I review hundreds of applications each year from rising seniors for our flagship program, Summer Science Program. What we’ve learned is that many of our bright and talented students are navigating their academic careers without access to the same supports as similarly high-achieving students.

    Where other Summer Science Program applicants might benefit from private tutors, college consultants, or guidance from parents familiar with the college application process and the high stress of today’s competitive college market, these students rise to the top of the applicant pool without leaning on the same resources as their peers.

    This is especially true for first-generation students who will be the first in their families to graduate from high school, go through the college admissions process, apply for financial aid, and enroll in college. Not only do they need to be more resourceful and self-reliant without the support of their personal networks, but they also often take on the responsibility of guiding their parents through these processes, rather than the other way around.

    School counselor shortage

    For many students who are underrepresented in academia, their exposure to different colleges, careers, and networks comes from their school counselors. While the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a minimum student-to-school counselor ratio of 250:1, the nationwide shortage of counselors led to a national average ratio of 385:1 between 2020-2023. That is a lot of strain on counselors who already serve as jacks of all trades–needing to keep up with evolving college admissions processes, understand the financial circumstances of hundreds of families, provide emotional support, and stay on top of the job market to advise accordingly. This ultimately affects the level of personalized counseling students receive.

    Making the college admissions process accessible

    In 2020, SSPI launched College Link, a mentorship program offering Summer Science Program alumni access to one-on-one or group mentoring. Mentors support students during their transition from high school to college through guidance on financial aid, early decision/early action processes, college applications, personal essay writing, resume workshopping, and more. To date, College Link has served over 650 mentees and recruited over 580 mentors sourced from SSPI’s 4,200 alumni network.

    This mentorship network comprises individuals from various backgrounds, leading successful and diverse careers in academia and STEM. Mentors like Dr. Emma Louden, an astrophysicist, strategist, and youth advocate who also helped develop the program, provided SSPI’s recent alumni with insights from their real-world professional experiences. This helps them explore a variety of careers within the STEM field beyond what they learn about in the classroom.

    Demographic data from last year’s Summer Science Program cohort showed that 37 percent of participants had parents with no higher education degree. That is why College Link prioritizes one-on-one mentoring for first-generation college alumni who need more personalized guidance when navigating the complexities of the college application and admission process.

    College Link also offers group mentoring for non-first-generation students, who receive the same services from several mentors bringing great expertise on the varying topics highlighted from week to week.

    With the support of College Link, nearly one hundred percent of Summer Science Program alumni have gone on to attend college, including MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech and other prestigious institutions.

    Using College Link as a blueprint

    As the U.S. continues to face a counselor shortage, schools can further support students, especially first-generation students, through the college admissions process by creating mentorship networks using the College Link model. Schools can tap into their alumni network and identify successful role models who are ready to mentor younger generations and guide them beyond the admissions process. With the widespread implementation of Zoom in our everyday lives, it is now easier than ever to build networks virtually.

    Mentorship networks in schools can provide additional support systems for high school students and alleviate the pressures school counselors experience daily during college admissions season. Let’s continue to ensure the college admissions process is accessible to all students.

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  • Supporting Transfer Student Success Through Data

    Supporting Transfer Student Success Through Data

    Transfer students often experience a range of challenges transitioning from a community college to a four-year institution, including credit loss and feeling like they don’t belong on campus.

    At the University of California, Santa Barbara, 30 percent of incoming students are transfers. More than 90 percent of those transfers come from California community colleges and aspire to complete their degree in two years.

    While many have achieved that goal, they often lacked time to explore campus offerings or felt pressured to complete their degree on an expedited timeline, according to institutional data.

    “Students feel pressure to complete in two years for financial reasons and because that is the expectation they receive regarding four-year graduation,” said Linda Adler-Kassner, associate vice chancellor of teaching and learning. Transfer students said they don’t want to “give up” part of their two years on campus to study away, she said.

    Institutional data also revealed that their academic exploration opportunities were limited, with fewer transfers participating in research or student groups, which are identified as high-impact practices.

    As a result, the university created a new initiative to improve transfer student awareness of on-campus opportunities.

    Getting data: UCSB’s institutional research planning and assessment division conducts an annual new student survey, which collects information on students’ demographic details, academic progress and outside participation or responsibilities. The fall 2024 survey revealed that 26 percent of transfers work for pay more than 20 hours per week; an additional 40 percent work between 10 and 20 hours per week. Forty-four percent of respondents indicated they do not participate in clubs or student groups.

    In 2024, the Office of Teaching and Learning conducted a transfer student climate study to “identify specific areas where the transfer student experience could be more effectively supported,” Adler-Kassner said. The OTL at UCSB houses six units focused on advancing equity and effectively supporting learners.

    The study found that while transfers felt welcomed at UCSB, few were engaging in high-impact practices and many had little space in their schedules for academic exploration, “which leads them to feel stress as they work on a quick graduation timeline,” Adler-Kassner said.

    Put into practice: Based on the results, OTL launched various initiatives to make campus stakeholders aware of transfer student needs and create effective interventions to support their success.

    Among the first was the Transfer Connection Project, which surveys incoming transfer students to identify their interests. OTL team members use that data to match students’ interests with campus resources and generate a personalized letter that outlines where the student can get plugged in on campus. In fall 2025, 558 students received a personal resource guide.

    The data also showed that a majority—more than 60 percent—of transfers sought to enroll in four major programs: communications, economics, psychological and brain sciences, and statistics and data science.

    In turn, OTL leaders developed training support for faculty and teaching assistants working in these majors to implement transfer-focused pedagogies. Staff also facilitate meet-and-greet events for transfers to meet department faculty.

    This work builds on the First Generation and Transfer Scholars Welcome, which UCSB has hosted since 2017. The welcome event includes workshops, a research opportunity fair and facilitated networking to get students engaged early.

    The approach is unique because it is broken into various modules that, when combined, create a holistic approach to student support, Adler-Kassner said.

    Gauging impact: Early data shows the interventions have improved student success.

    Since beginning this work, UCSB transfer retention has grown from 87 percent in 2020 to 94 percent in 2023. Similarly, graduation rates increased 10 percentage points from 2020 to 2024. Adler-Kassner noted that while this data may be correlated with the interventions, it does not necessarily demonstrate causation.

    In addition, the Transfer Student Center reaches about 40 percent of the transfer student population each year, and institutional data shows that those who engage with the center have a four-percentage-point higher retention rate and two-point higher graduation rate than those who don’t.

    Do you have an intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.

    This article has been updated to correct the share of incoming students that are transfers at UCSB.

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  • Student Success and Working-Class Students: Whose Success is it Anyway? 

    Student Success and Working-Class Students: Whose Success is it Anyway? 

    This blog was kindly authored by Max Collins, a student at the University of Sheffield and Jon Down, Director of Development at Grit Breakthrough Programmes.  

    A lot is made of higher education being a driver of social mobility, a route for students from working-class backgrounds to achieve labour market success and higher earnings. But, at the same time, many argue that this view is at odds with how students think about the value of their education.  

    The student-led evaluation of the University of Sheffield Ambition Programme, in which Grit was a delivery partner, tells us that this is not how working-class students see it at all. Funded by the Law Family Charitable Foundation, the programme aims to support the success of young men from pre-16 through to graduation and beyond.  

    For some, being at university is less about personal success, more about what it means for their family. Students interviewed by the evaluation team talked about how:  

    success is less about my career or actual achievements. It’s more about my family…  guiding my younger siblings into higher education.   

    For others it’s about taking the opportunities that run alongside the academic experience:  

    At the end of the day a degree is a piece of paper to get to you into a field of work but the opportunities are what makes a degree… for me it’s definitely the wider opportunities. 

    Personal growth and personal satisfaction are also significant indicators of success. Success is: 

    Proving that I could do it. My parents didn’t expect me to go to uni. I wasn’t ever a person who was getting straight As or was the smartest in the class… no one ever thought I was going to go into higher education. Even I didn’t. 

    And it comes with  

    the process and the journey, what you learn from different situations and experiences. 

    Much of this mirrors what employers say about the priorities of new graduates in the workplace.  As one student said:  

    Success is more about the satisfaction you feel at the end of the day, your work-life balance and just feeling like you’re making a difference rather than the financial (although obviously the financial has an impact). 

    Underpinning the conventional, narrow take on what success should look like is a Social Mobility narrative stuck in deficit mode. It is one where working-class pupils at school need to be mended, to be fixed, so they can fit in at university and, ultimately, the graduate work place. They must conceal their identity to successfully navigate the world of Higher Education and a graduate career. It is a narrative that says working-class students need to change – economically, socially, culturally – if they are to succeed: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/working-class-students-feel-alienated-from-their-creative-arts-degrees-heres-how-to-help/. 

    But, once again, the evaluation of the Ambition programme suggests that this is not how working-class students see things. While the students freely acknowledge the struggles they have had with belonging, with imposter syndrome, with the stigma that comes with a working-class accent, they also describe making connections across the classes: 

    When you’re from a working-class background, you don’t really talk to people of different backgrounds, but the programme has provided a different approach. So now I speak with people who’ve had an upper-class background. I’ve got a lot of international student friends and I’ve learned a lot from them. 

    How they have found belonging: 

    I feel like I belong at uni more than I thought I would because in the programme I immediately met people with a similar background to me…  

    How they got past feelings of stigma: 

    I did feel a bit hesitant, especially coming from Rotherham… literally everyone I met sounds like the Queen’s English, that everyone’s quite posh except me… but once you get to know everyone, you change your opinion and perception of it.  

    Success for working-class students, then, does not have to mean a transformation of identity, rejecting who you are and where you have come from. It’s not about conforming to an alien aspiration. Success is a reframing, on each individual student’s own terms, of their expectations for themselves and their future lives. It can mean a myriad of different things, but success doesn’t have to mean leaving your old self, your family, your community behind.  

    In times when there are significant questions about whether young people will be as wealthy, healthy and happy as their parents, when there are increasing debates about the value of a university education, isn’t it time for universities to expand their definition of success to what feels right and true, rather than to what extent students conform to somebody else’s expectations? 

    So, for the working-class students on our programmes, success might be about the contribution they make to their community or the next generation (the relative values of the pay of teachers and academics has been eroded significantly in recent years but few would argue that these are not a socially valuable and important roles). It might be about their happiness, fulfilment, job satisfaction and quality of life. It might be about finding new ways to live in the world around them. 

    As the old economic certainties are called into question, universities need to find new ways of measuring success beyond those that focus on earning potential and social status. They could start by making more use of questions from Graduate Outcomes Survey around well being and satisfaction. And, rather than being simply a snapshot in time, the Survey could look at the broader graduate journey.  

    For example, alumni can give a much richer picture of what success means in the long term. Case studies and narratives of life journeys help us understand how success means different things at different times. Where success for working-class students means returning to or staying in the communities where they were brought up, instead of being part of the flight to the big cities, then we might capture the economic impact on the prosperity of a local area. 

    In our programmes, we have seen how, with the right mixture of support, challenge and encouragement, working-class students come to define success on their own terms. It becomes an experience rooted in their own selves. After all, whose success is it anyway?

     

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