Tag: students

Should students’ unions reach for the stars?

Ahead of heading out for the summer to deliver training to new students’ union officers, as well as booking trains and hotels and placing an unfeasibly large order of (unfeasibly large) post-it notes, every year we have a run at reading and analysing all of the pledges made in their election manifestos.

Jim recalls a time when the key challenge emerging from the exercise was convincing the incoming crop that £1 a pint might need to be an occasional offer rather than a permanent price drop – a time when “student stress” was a precursor to mental health, and a time when “grants not fees” was a viable option rather than a lost era.

A time when promises to improve the awareness of, or to extend the range of goods on offer in the campus food bank would have been unimaginable.

Over the years, the pledges adorning the leaflets that litter the campus every spring have become less markedly less political and increasingly parochial. Oftentimes the key challenge has been to help new officers understand where their pledges meet policy – to help them locate what they want to achieve with the right committee or the appropriate PVC.

So there’s something quite bleak about a year in which the demands are so historically comparatively modest, yet also so simultaneously ambitious given the resource constraints facing the sector they’re about to be immersed in.

And as we dust down the exercises and update the slide decks, we’re left wondering whether the right message isn’t how to advocate for “more and better”, but instead should be picking which things shouldn’t join the growing group of aspects of the student experience that are becoming “less and worse”.

They are not, in and of themselves, a collection of PDFs that are fully representative of the student body’s needs and aspirations. Many tell us more about a particular university’s culture and structure, or that students’ unions’s local funding settlement, than they do the realities of the contemporary student condition.

But taken together, they tell us quite a bit about how students see their education and the aspects of it they’d like to see change. We’ve read, coded and analysed over 1,000 of them this year – from both winners and many of the losers – and our main conclusion is that the parochialism on offer belies something more than a lack of ambition or understanding of politics.

They suggest a generation struggling to believe in possibility – one for whom the world looks like it will never get better, and where making little tweaks to help students cope is the wisest way to avoid being yet another politician whose promises will be broken. The question we’re struggling with is whether to amp up their ambitions, or temper their expectations with a dose of reality.

Back to basics

The first thing you notice when taking a step back from this year’s crop is that universities seem to be systematically failing to deliver fundamental aspects of the educational experience. The manifestos reveal students demanding things that ought to be standard – lecture materials uploaded in advance, breaks in long teaching sessions, consistent feedback. It’s not even about demanding extras or enhancements – it’s often about institutions not delivering the basics:

Right now, some departments give detailed comments, while others leave students guessing…feedback should help students improve, not just justify a grade.

Helen Slater, Education Officer, SU University of Bath

Multi hour lectures should have a short break, make this enforced. Rebecca Schofield, Loughborough Students’ Union

When, like us, you know what’s in the Quality Code or the B Conditions of the regulatory framework like the back of your hand, the sheer volume of pledges about improvements to simple things is dispiriting. Students shouldn’t need to campaign for things like accessible learning materials, or for the VLE to work:

…resolving issues with timetabling. This will mean you receive your timetables earlier than 1-2 teaching weeks.

Amrit Dhillon, University of Manchester SU

End Deadline Clumping: Two deadlines shouldn’t fall on the same day, students perform best when they can focus on one piece of work at a time.

Aliasgar Gandhi, Birmingham Guild, Postgraduate Officer

What also emerges is a picture of institutions that have failed to adapt to students managing multiple responsibilities – work, commuting, caring duties – whilst trying to engage with their education. The assumption that getting into university means being ready for it, and that they’ll be able to benefit from what’s there, is coming apart:

Have timetables that work for you! No more waiting around for lectures!

Lily Watson, President, University of Chester

Improve assessment timetabling by involving departments, preventing deadline clashes, and ensuring deadlines are released earlier.

Aya Haidar, Academic Officer, York University SU

It all suggests a generation that has lost faith in institutional competence and is demanding explicit guarantees that basic teaching and learning processes function in a way that allows them to experience them. We’re left wondering whether to explain what it is that students are entitled to – even if it seems that on the resource available, many universities are struggling to deliver it.

Time won’t give me time

It’s long been clear that student disengagement tends to reflect time scarcity rather than apathy. Manifestos reveal students stretched impossibly thin between work, commuting, and study, making traditional university schedules completely unworkable:

Flexible Timetables & Online Learning: University should fit around your life, not the other way around. This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about reducing stress and creating a study environment that fits your needs, whether balancing work, personal life or study preferences.

Forum Yadav, Education Officer, Manchester Metropolitan SU

… implement a hybrid learning system that encourages people to come into the classroom in person, without disadvantaging those who cannot make it to lectures in person. This system would allow disabled students to keep up without putting their health at risk, and allow students to actually stay home when they’re ill… or have other commitments.

Lyds Knowles, Diversity, Access and Participation Officer, University of Sussex

Every set of manifestos contains pledges about scheduling that acknowledge students no longer have full-time availability for academic life. Universities persist with timetables designed for a student body that could prioritise education over economic survival:

Concurrent lectures, especially around lunch time cause students to not be able to have lunch. We will work with Vice Deans and programme officers to sort out the timetables to make sure there is an hour free at noon for students to be able to eat.

Baiyu Liu, President, King’s College London SU

The grouping of deadlines, it is unfair to expect students who also have to work part time jobs to submit their deadlines all in the same week. Often leading to burnout, stress and further complications. I would like to see the deadlines spread throughout a student’s academic journey allowing them the time and freedom to explore them in full.

Joshua Frost, President Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business

The depth of these time management proposals reveals institutions fundamentally out of step with student reality. When students need explicit campaigns for reduced commute times, condensed timetabling, and online options, it suggests universities are designing education around institutional convenience rather than student availability:

Timetabling that will be student-friendly

Francis Ani. President for Student Communities, Hull SU

Make NECs more easily accessible for students, and more confidential; you shouldn’t have to disclose personal circumstances to attain a needed extension!

Ryan Turner, VP Postgraduate Candidate, Nottingham Trent Students’ Union

It all represents a fundamental challenge to the traditional university model, which assumed students could treat education as their primary occupation rather than one competing demand amongst many. We’re torn between encouraging SU officers to challenge that – or whether they should find ways to help students meet the demands.

The earn-and-learn economy

The traditional full-time student model seems to have completely collapsed as financial necessity forces students into near full-time work alongside study. The manifestos treat work not as supplementary income but as a survival strategy that universities must actively support:

Students are left with no option other than work excessive hours in their part time jobs to be able to afford basic necessities, having a negative impact on both their academic as well as their university experience.

Aisha Lord, Vice President Falmouth, Falmouth and Exeter SU

Almost all students commute to university… This can be very costly and stressful, and force students to work extra hours, which takes away from their study, and their overall energy.

Komal Ashfaq, President, Manchester Metropolitan University

Rather than treating work and education as competing demands, the manifestos demand integration – paid internships, work experience built into courses, and academic arrangements that accommodate employment. It reflects students who can’t afford to see work and study as separate:

Lobby for part-time work experience that matches course content and enhances learning.

Ismail Patel, Candidate for Education Officer, University of Bradford Students’ Union.

Advocate for more internship and part-time work opportunities for postgraduate students.

Navin Raj Ramachandran Selvaraj, Candidate for Postgraduate Students’ Officer, Oxford Brookes University.

Their proposals go beyond simple job-finding to demand that universities take responsibility for helping students find good work that develops relevant skills. It suggests a complete rejection of the idea that student employment is peripheral to education:

Push for More Part-Time Job Opportunities on Campus Financial stability is crucial for students, and I will advocate for more part-time roles within the university.

Muhammad Barik Ullah, Vice President of Undergraduate Education, Westminster SU

I will also campaign nationally for increased apprenticeship schemes that provide real-world experience beyond the lecture hall.

Matthew Lamb, candidate for Education Officer, Lancaster University SU

It also reflects a generation that sees no viable alternative to integrating work and education, and expects institutions to adapt accordingly rather than maintaining the fiction of full-time student focus. We can’t work out whether they should fight to reclaim the full-time student experience, or continue to try to fit too much into a tight timetable.

The financialisation of… everything

On that, cost-of-living concerns have invaded every aspect of university life because the student finance system has fundamentally failed to cover basic living expenses. The manifestos demand subsidised everything – meals, transport, laundry, stationery – revealing students unable to afford necessities:

Increase the Selection and Diversify £1.50 Value Meals to ensure access to affordable, nutritious options. …Offer Free Meal Planning and Cooking Classes to help reduce grocery expenses and prevent malnutrition.

Izzy Downer, Community Officer, SU University of Bath

I will fight to make the university more affordable with cheaper housing and bus travel (whilst increasing frequency!)

Lewis Wilson, Education Officer, University of Sussex

The breadth of financial support demanded goes far beyond traditional student finance, extending to food banks, emergency funding, and discounted services. Maintenance loans are no longer functioning as intended:

Subsidise essential supplies like period products and course materials.

Ana Da Silva, VP Welfare & Community, Royal Holloway Students’ Union

Lower Living Costs – Reduce food, rent, and transport expenses for students… Food on campus should be affordable for everyone. At least one cheap, healthy option should be available on every menu.

Emma Brown, Union President, University of Southampton

Increasing provisions of free menstrual products across campus.

Leah Buttery, Wellbeing Officer, Lancaster University

Students are essentially demanding that universities compensate for a broken national funding system by subsidising daily life. The manifestos treat a financial crisis as so normalised that every policy area must include cost-reduction measures.

But with little prospect of significant relief coming from government, we’re torn between whether they should campaign into the ether for better student financial support, or find further fixes internally to provide some relief.

Radical transparency as a default expectation

More than ever this year, candidates are demanding real-time access to information about every aspect of institutional decision-making, reflecting a generation raised on social media expecting constant updates and complete visibility:

I will push for minutes of all committee meetings to be published on the student portal within a week.

Sophie Elsey, Candidate, University of Wolverhampton Students’ Union

More transparency from the university management in decision making, including budget allocations.

Candidate, Queen’s Students’ Union

Manifestos go far beyond traditional accountability to demand that previously private institutional processes become completely transparent. Students want detailed financial breakdowns, accessible decision-making explanations, and immediate access to information that universities have historically kept internal:

Provide an open-access dashboard showing real-time spending on student services and capital projects.

William Garvey, Officer Candidate, University of the Arts London Students’ Union

Push for module leaders to share assessment marking rubrics with students in advance.

Hasan Chowdhury, Candidate, University of Chester Students’ Union

Traditional consultation processes and annual reports are treated as inadequate relics. Students expect real-time feedback systems, open access to committee discussions, and quarterly updates that explain exactly how decisions are made and money is spent:

I will advocate for livestreamed town halls where university leaders take student questions unfiltered.

Jasmine A., Candidate, Edge Hill Students’ Union

Push to publish all course changes on a centralised, searchable hub before implementation.

Priya Chandra, Academic Officer candidate, University of Bedfordshire Students’ Union

That isn’t just about accountability but about fundamental assumptions around information access. Students treat transparency as a default setting rather than something institutions graciously provide when pressed:

Introduce opt-in alerts so students are notified whenever the university makes a policy change that affects them.

Mohamed Khaleel, Candidate for VP Academic Affairs, Cardiff Metropolitan University SU

The depth of the transparency demands suggest a rejection of traditional institutional opacity and a belief that students have the right to understand exactly how things work rather than trusting authority figures to act appropriately. We could encourage them to demand clarity – or we could prepare them for a year during which confidential discussions are more likely to be the norm.

Bureaucracy as liberation technology

Rather than seeing formal processes as obstacles, students genuinely believe that better systems and structured procedures can solve problems that previous generations addressed through personal relationships or protest:

I’ll lobby for a standardised extension policy across departments to remove ambiguity and favouritism.

Aisha Khan, Education Candidate, Aston Students’ Union

The manifestos systematically replace informal advocacy with process-driven representation that offers genuine agency rather than tokenistic consultation. This reflects deep scepticism about personal relationships as reliable routes to change:

Create template emails and appeal guides for students contesting grades or procedures.

Liana Dsouza, Candidate, Solent Students’ Union

Mandate response times for all university emails affecting students’ academic progress.

Zehra Al-Khatib, Candidate, University of the Highlands and Islands SA

Students want predictable, systematic responses that don’t depend on who happens to be in charge or what mood they’re in. The proposals assume that good design can guarantee fair treatment regardless of individual personalities or relationships:

Create an online portal where students can see the status of any ongoing issue or query.

Lydia Spencer, VP Education Candidate, Bucks Students’ Union

Replace paper-based mitigating circumstances with an automated and transparent digital system.

Jayden Moore, Candidate, University of South Wales Students’ Union

It reads like an inversion of traditional anti-bureaucratic politics, suggesting a generation that trusts systems more than individuals and sees formal processes as tools of liberation rather than oppression. But we are left wondering whether they should advocate for more human approaches – or whether they should place faith in systems that at least appear to them more consistent and fair.

Change is inevitable (except from the vending machines)

Not nearly as much as we’d like, we are starting to see the wide-ranging organisational change processes and restructures come through in manifestos. But while a decade or so ago we might have seen pledges to “fight the cuts”, more often than not we see candidates keen that students are at least kept in the loop:

One of the biggest frustrations students have is feeling like decisions are made about them, not with them. Whether it’s changes to course structures, university policies, finance or support services, students often feel out of the loop or unsure about where to raise concerns. I want to push for better transparency between students and the university, ensuring that major decisions are clearly communicated and that student voices are involved from the start.

Humphrey Kasale, President, Manchester Metropolitan University

“The University and its partner colleges have embarked on a process to explore new operating models including merging into a single institution to help save money and make the institution more sustainable…I will push for any savings to be made through greater efficiencies from the university and colleges working closer together on back office functions and not at the cost of the frontline student experience.

Xander McDade, Students’ Association President, UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands)

In some cases manifesto sets seem oblivious to announced redundancy rounds or major change projects that are bound to dominate their year. In others, students see problems coming that others may have missed:

I hope to ensure that grading and marking stay consistent with the merging of departments soon so continuing students don’t get marked down for writing essays in a specific way they’re used to when taking modules outside of their departmental subject that have different essay structures.

Noor Abbass, candidate for Education Officer, Goldsmiths

Ensure smooth transition during departmental mergers

Jeevana Sandhya, Education Officer candidate, University of Leicester

Again, we are puzzled. Should we explain just how tough the year looks set to be across many of the universities we’ll be visiting, or keep them focussed on the aspects of the experience they’d like to see improved?

Power as something you practise

One thing that is a constant from previous years, and very much reflects the Gen-Z preference for horizontal support, is plenty of pledges on peer support – on everything from wellbeing to study skills:

I pledge to create an anonymized essay-bank showcasing past student work to illustrate degree classifications, helping students understand grading standards and academic expectations.

Gina Tindale, Academic Officer, Newcastle University

Expand Buddy Schemes and Pastoral Support for undergraduates and postgraduates.

Joshie Christian, Vice President Education, University of Southampton

I will launch a mentorship programme for new volunteers to gain a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of student media and its dynamics.

Libby Griffiths, Student Media Officer, Newcastle University

Even on this one, we can’t work out what to do. Explain how hard it’s getting to find and support student volunteers to deliver the student experience for each other, or encourage them to explore the sorts of schemes we see on the continent that offer academic credit,a payment (or both) – building students’ skills in the process?

Climb every mountain higher

In most universities every summer, there’s a careful little dance being played between new SU officers and the senior managers they most often meet with.

On the SU side, pledges get converted into exploratory conversations to test the appetite for change in the year ahead. On the university side, managers will be sussing out the leaders that students have picked – are these ones who we can work with, or ones that need to be disabused of their assumptions and ambitions?

Having discussed the choices at length, for what it’s worth, we’ll be doing what we always do – not making assumptions or carefully manipulating them towards particular actions, but laying out what’s going on and why so they can make those choices for themselves. After all, they are almost always perfectly able to.

But as well as our usual advice to listen and be curious about the underpinning experiences that lead to their policy ideas, we do have one additional bit of advice this year.

The “sunshine indoors” decade of promises to provide pretty much everything to do with the student experience reflects what universities have been doing too. It might have made sense when there was money around to invest – but it’s now not only proving impossible to deliver, it obscures the role that other areas of government should be playing in the student experience.

Whether it’s the business department’s dismal failure to think about students at work, the absence of the recognition between health and successful study for health ministers, or (in England and Scotland) housing legislation seeming to be silent on struggles students face, it does feel like we’re close to the end of what universities can do to improve things – with untapped potential for the rest of the public realm to step up to support students.

Student leaders and university managers may well come from different worlds, and may well need to respectively deepen their understanding of those worlds – but whether working in close partnership or public opposition, they ought to be able to agree to explore together how and why we got here – and the sorts of external lobbying and campaigning that can get us somewhere else.

It’s almost certainly external to the university where the real possibilities can be found – and feels like students advocating for students while universities advocate for universities is a separation that should come to at least a temporary end.

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June 30, 2025
Today’s students are scrimpers, not spendthrifts

The popular imagination’s archetype of the student has remained remarkably consistent over the last fifty years.

Ten minutes on TikTok will conjure up the beer-swilling frivolity and clandestine nerdiness of Starter for 10 or the chaotic house share arrangements and endless student scrapes Fresh Meat – neither so far away from those that the cast of The Young Ones enjoyed back in the eighties.

Neither the Covid pandemic nor the ongoing pressures on cost of living has managed to shake the view that the student experience involves leaving home at eighteen in search of a little more education, and a lot more freewheeling independence.

Prospective students’ perception of university are influenced by those stereotypes – and may find them more offputting than appealing. At one of the focus groups we conducted in Doncaster for the UPP Foundation’s inquiry into widening participation one 17 year old put it:

I want to go to uni, to live on my own and to get drunk all the time, like the uni party lifestyle, not for the degree, right? But then, if I do it just for that, then I’m getting into debt.

To those living in higher education cold spot areas like Doncaster, where there are few graduate-level jobs available, higher education stacks up as a bad bet. Young people can’t justify spending all that money on what looks from the outside like a three-year bender, if it won’t lead to a better job back home.

Pay as you go

Current students, however, have a more nuanced view. The latest report in the UPP Foundation inquiry explores the experiences of today’s students, drawing on focus groups held in the city of Nottingham, and shows that while they find the social aspect of their courses the most fulfilling in terms of enjoyment and personal development, they are having to weigh their own fun against the costs of study and the imperative to graduate into secure and well-paid graduate jobs. Unlike the living-in-the-moment hedonist student archetype, students are clear that the “point” of higher education is to gain skills and qualifications for their careers, and this focus creates pressure to make their experience “worth it.”

Those who have maintenance loans say that they are nowhere near enough to cover living costs. The majority we spoke to have part-time jobs, or some other kind of money-making “side hustle” which impinge on their ability to take part in the socialising and extra-curricular activity they value. Even those receiving some help from parents spoke to us about stiff competition for part-time jobs and months of searching for work to finance their experiences of student life. For these students, there was a keen sense that if they wanted to have a little fun while at university, then it was their responsibility to earn the money to facilitate that, not their parents’:

I don’t expect my parents to have to pay for me when I want to go out to eat…that’s kind of why I want to work, to be able to maintain my social life, because that’s not my parents’ job at all.

The past few years have seen a notable increase in numbers of commuting students, and this was a clear theme in our research. Some students were living a considerable distance from campus and commuting in as needed; either living independently in locations cheaper from campus or staying at home to save on rent. With many of these students falling through the cracks in the maintenance loan system or unable to rely on family members for financial help, the commuter students we spoke to told us about enduring 5.00am drives to nursing placements and the vagaries of provincial bus schedules as they try to balance their studies with an affordable lifestyle.

Not all of them had intended to commute, but had found on-campus residential life too expensive or too logistically complicated – and some added that they valued the skills and qualities their commuter experience had given them. But for these students, too, the social and extracurricular aspects of the student experience fall by the wayside. As one university sports club president explained to us of his commuter student friends:

Commuting means you’ll only come into campus when you really need to be there, so you don’t really get to make friends on your course, or you don’t really get to go and do sports and stuff, because there’s no point in you coming all the way just for two hours of football.

One hand in my pocket

It really was not that long ago that maintenance grants were the norm and student life was cheap and cheerful. Policymakers, and possibly even some university leaders may still unconsciously think in those terms. But that model of student life is eroding, leaving too many on the wrong side of a bifurcated student experience in which some get to realise all the social fulfilment and enjoyment of traditional university life, while others cling on by their fingertips.

There are two possible responses to sustaining this broad-based student experience that the 2019 Augar review of post-18 education and funding called “a deep-seated part of English culture”: either the core curriculum must be expanded or the cost of accessing student life must be reduced. Taking either of these paths involves difficult and costly political and economic trade-offs. It won’t be cheap, but as any undergraduate will tell you, students are experts at making a little go a long way.

Download Fulfilment and outcomes: the student experience in 2025, the latest report of the UPP Foundation inquiry into widening participation here.

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June 29, 2025
Welfare reforms will hit disabled students hard

As political funding decisions continue to pose threats to both the welfare of disabled people and the higher education sector as a whole, disabled students find themselves caught up in a crossfire of financial cuts.

This was the subject of many coffee-break conversations at this year’s National Association of Disability Practitioners Conference, at which growing concerns around the financial viability of supporting disabled students effectively were shared by a number of specialist staff across the sector.

As a practitioner, and as a disabled student myself, it’s hard to shake the feeling that current support mechanisms are stretched to their limits. Without urgent investment and reform, it’s disabled students who will continue to bear the brunt.

Earlier in the year, Jim Dickinson flagged the potential fallout for disabled students arising from reforms to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) proposed in the government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper.

With over 100 Labour MPs signing an amendment opposing the changes, if rumours about the government’s compromise are to be believed, new students will soon lose out on some of the support that many existing disabled students are entitled to.

In the months since the reforms were first proposed, I’ve heard from a number of disabled students who shared serious concerns about what these cuts mean for their wellbeing, autonomy, and academic futures.

“Without PIP, I would have to drop out.”

That’s what Alex*, a disabled student at the University of Brighton, told me. Alex currently uses their PIP to cover a number of health related costs, from “feeding tube equipment that isn’t covered by the NHS, mobility equipment and repairs, and [support to cover] additional travel costs to get to [their] appointments.”

Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, considerations of dropping-out of university are not uncommon. Recent data within the Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey revealed that disabled students are almost twice as likely to have considered quitting, with 83 per cent of disabled students reporting challenges related to the cost-of-living.

In my day-job, I often encounter the mistaken assumption that Disabled Students’ Allowance has the ability to fill all of the financial gaps that disabled students may face throughout their studies. DSA can act as a vital source of support for study-related costs, but it is not designed to replace social security.

For many disabled students, Personal Independence Payment is a lifeline for maintaining independence whilst at university. But with persistent delays and restrictions on DSA support and the proposal to restrict PIP even further for young people, many students like Alex are at risk of starting their studies without access to either.

“I can’t work alongside my course with my health issues…”

In my own context, full-time students are expected to commit around 50 hours per week to their studies to meet the notional learning hours set by the SCQF. Yet, in the midst of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, an estimated 68 per cent of undergraduates now work paid jobs alongside full-time study, exposing a continued disconnect between policy expectations and the lived reality of students today. A balancing act of work and study is unsustainable for many, and for disabled students, the pressures are even greater.

Abi* reflected this in her conversation with me: “I can’t work alongside my course with my health issues […] as student finance is so little, I use my PIP to stay afloat every month,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to have my car, with my carer driving me – which is the only way I can get out of the house.”

At last check, Scope estimated that disabled households require an additional £1067 per month to meet basic living costs, as a result of the many financial barriers associated with existing as a disabled person in a society that is not constructed to compensate for a wide variety of access needs. Whilst PIP is not intended as an out-of-work benefit, many disabled students rely on it to fill the gaps left by inadequate financial support. Abi’s experience reflects the additional strain placed on disabled students by the “disability price tag”.

Accessible accommodation is “more expensive than most private rentals…”

Systemic barriers were emphasised by a number of the students I spoke with. For Daisy* securing accessible housing has been a particular challenge financially.

Reflecting on her own living situation, she said: “I live in a very inaccessible city and can only live in university halls,” “it’s more expensive than most private rentals, but there’s no alternative.”

Back in Brighton, Alex* shared similar concerns: “my only option is to live in university accommodation, which costs significantly more on average than most house shares in my city.”

These accounts reflect a wider set of structural barriers that have a direct impact on the disabled student experience. Recent data from Disabled Students UK highlighted that affordable, accessible housing is often scarce, with 46 per cent of disabled students reporting that they’ve ended up paying more for housing that met their access needs.

And housing can’t be considered in isolation – it’s tied to the broader context of inaccessible transport, barriers to timely healthcare, inadequate personal care support, and the high costs associated with assistive equipment.

When these basic needs go unmet, it becomes significantly harder for disabled students to engage with university life: academically, socially, and beyond. Abi shared this concern, expressing fears that the removal of PIP would prevent her from having a wider student experience: “without my PIP, I wouldn’t be able to do anything extracurricular.”

If disabled students can’t afford to live independently, how can they fully participate in university life, let alone thrive outside of it?

“Why can’t they see how hard I’m trying to find work?”

That’s the question Katie* posed to me when we spoke. Preparing to undertake a PhD in Newcastle, Katie found the transition from university into work daunting and unsupported. “There’s still an expectation that you get your degree, then get a job,” she said. “But there’s very little recognition of how much harder that is for disabled graduates.”

A recent report from the Shaw Trust highlighted the persistence of the disability employment gap amongst graduates, emphasising that the gap is not about a lack of aspiration, it’s about structural and systemic barriers.

Katie’s experience reflects a broader trend – while much of the discourse centres around “employability” and economic outcomes, little is said about the lack of disability-informed careers support or the inflexibility of most graduate job opportunities. “Trying to find ‘disability confident’ employers reduces the job pool even further,” she adds. “Half of the jobs which could be hybrid or online aren’t. And trying to find a flexible job that allows time for medical appointments? Nearly impossible.”

But it isn’t just about work…

These conversations emphasise access to equitable higher education risks being eroded by benefit restrictions, ongoing delays to DSA support, and widespread cuts to university funding.

While higher education institutions have made important strides in recent years, through the development of Disabled Student Commitment, and an increased focus on compliance with the Equality Act, service cuts across the sector threaten to undermine that progress.

According to our research at Disabled Students UK, only 38 per cent of disabled students currently feel that their support needs have been met by their institution. As public funding continues to shrink, many universities are being forced to reassess spending, with many opting to restructure services and streamline provision. But if disabled students are sidelined in these processes, the consequences will be stark.

In a climate of compounding cuts, institutions must take care to ensure that the interests of disabled students are not excluded from decision-making or deprioritised in budget reviews. Otherwise, we risk further entrenching inequity within a sector that prides itself on widening participation.

At the heart of all of this is one clear message – disabled students are not asking for luxury. They’re seeking the basic conditions needed to study, participate, and succeed. If we cannot meet even the baseline needs of disabled students, at both an institutional and state level, then we need to seriously question what kind of higher education system we are building, and who it’s truly for.

Disabled Students UK’s Annual Disabled Student Survey, the largest survey into HE accessibility and the disabled student experience in the UK, is open for responses until the end of July.

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June 27, 2025
A Harvard College Has a Plan B for International Students

The Harvard Kennedy School announced a contingency plan for its international students Tuesday in the event that the Trump administration successfully bars the university from enrolling foreign students, according to The Boston Globe.

The Kennedy School, Harvard’s postgraduate college of government, public policy and international affairs, said that both incoming and returning students could study remotely, and returning students would be given the option to finish their degree at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

“We are announcing these contingency plans now to alleviate the uncertainty many students feel, but we will not officially launch these programs unless there is sufficient demand from students who are unable to come to the United States,” Kennedy School dean Jeremy Weinstein wrote in an email Tuesday.

Harvard needs the approval of its accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, to allow students to complete their degrees online, and current students who want to study in Toronto would have to apply for a Canadian visa next month.

The Kennedy School is the first college at the university to release its formal contingency plan; others are working on developing their own. HKS is particularly vulnerable to a foreign student ban: 59 percent of its students are international, compared to 24 percent of Harvard’s total student population.

Harvard is currently suing the Trump administration over multiple attempts to ban its foreign student population, including by revoking the university’s Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification and issuing an executive proclamation. Last Friday, a federal judge granted Harvard a preliminary injunction in one of its court challenges.

Even if the Trump administration’s efforts targeting Harvard specifically are struck down by the courts, other moves—such as revoking Chinese students’ visas en masse or banning nonimmigrant visa holders from a dozen countries—could prevent some of the Kennedy School’s current and incoming students from attending.

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June 27, 2025
Does higher ed still make sense for students, financially? (Bryan Alexander)

[Editor’s note: This article first appeared at BryanAlexander.org.]

Is a college degree still worth it?

The radio program/podcast Marketplace hosted me as a guest last week to speak to the question. You can listen to it* or read my notes below, or both. I have one reflection at the end of this post building on one interview question.

One caveat or clarification before I get hate mail: the focus of the show was entirely on higher education’s economics. We didn’t discuss the non-financial functions of post-secondary schooling because that’s not what the show (called “Marketplace”) is about, nor did we talk about justifying academic study for reasons of personal development, family formation, the public good, etc. The conversation was devoted strictly to the economic proposition.

The hosts, Kimberly Adams and Reema Khrais, began by asking if higher ed still made financial sense. Yes, I answered, for a good number of people – but not everyone. Much depends on your degree and your institution’s reputation. And I hammered home the problem of some college but no degree. The hosts asked if that value proposition was declining. My response: the perception of that value is dropping. Here I emphasized the reality, and the specter, of student debt, along with anxieties about AI and politics. Then I added my hypothesis that the “college for all” consensus is breaking up.

Next the hosts asked me what changing (declining) attitudes about higher education mean for campuses. I responded by outlining the many problems, centered around the financial pressures many schools are under. I noted Trump’s damages then cited my peak higher education model. Marketplace asked me to explain the appeal of alternatives to college (the skilled trades, certificates, boot camps, etc), which I did, and then we turned to automation, which I broke up into AI vs robotics, before noting gender differences.

Back to college for all: which narrative succeeds it? I didn’t have a good, single answer right away. We touched on a resurgence of vocational technology, then I sang the praises of liberal education. We also talked about the changing value of different degrees – is the BA the new high school diploma? Is a master’s degree still a good idea? I cited the move to reduce degree demands from certain fields, as well as the decline of the humanities, the crisis of computer science, and the growing importance of allied health.

After my part ended, Adams and Khrais pondered the role of higher education as a culture war battlefield. Different populations might respond in varied ways – perhaps adults are more into the culture war issues, and maybe women (already the majority of students) are at greater risk of automation.

So what follows the end of college for all?

If the American consensus that K-12 should prepare every student for college breaks down, if we no longer have a rough agreement that the more post-secondary experience people get, the better, the next phase seems to be… mixed. Perhaps we’re entering an intermediary phase before a new settlement becomes clear.

One component seems to be a resurgence in the skilled trades, requiring either apprenticeship, a short community college course of study, or on the job training. Demand is still solid, at least until robotics become reliable and cost-effective in these fields, which doesn’t seem to be happening in at least the short term. This needs preparation in K-12, and we’re already seeing the most prominent voices calling for a return to secondary school trades training. There’s a retro dimension to this which might appeal to older folks. (I’ve experienced this in conversations with Boomers and my fellow Gen Xers, as people reminisce about shop class and home ec.)

A second piece of the puzzle would be businesses and the public sector expanding their education functions. There is already an ecosystem of corporate campuses, online training, chief learning officers, and more; that could simply grow as employers seek to wean employees away from college.

A third might be a greater focus on skills across the board. Employers demand certain skills to a higher degree of clarity, perhaps including measurements for soft skills. K-12 schools better articulate student skill achievement, possibly through microcredentials and/or expanded (portfolio) certification. Higher education expands its use of prior learning assessment for adult learners and transfer students, while also following or paralleling K-12 in more clearly identifying skills within the curriculum and through outcomes.

A fourth would be greater politicization of higher education. If America pulls back from college for all, college for some arrives and the question of who gets to go to campus becomes a culture war battlefield. Already a solid majority of students are women, so we might expect gender politics to intensify, with Republicans and men’s rights activists increasingly calling on male teenagers to skip college while young women view university as an even more appropriate stage of their lives. Academics might buck 2025’s trends and more clearly proclaim the progressive aims they see postsecondary education fulfilling, joined by progressive politicians and cultural figures. Popular culture might echo this, with movies/TV shows/songs/bestsellers depicting the academy as either a grim ideological factory turning students into fiery liberals or as a safe place for the flowering of justice and identity.

Connecting these elements makes me recall and imagine stories. I can envision two teenagers, male and female, talking through their expectations of college. One sees it as mandatory “pink collar” preparation while the other dreads it for that reason. The former was tracked into academic classes while the latter appreciated maker space time and field trips to work sites. Or we might follow a young man as he enters woodworking and succeeds in that field for years, feeling himself supported in his masculinity and also avoiding student debt, until he decides to return to school after health problems limit his professional abilities. Perhaps one business sets up a campus and an apprenticeship system which it codes politically, such as claiming a focus on merit and not DEI, on manly virtues and traditional culture. In contrast another firm does the same but without any political coding, instead carefully anchoring everything in measured and certified skill development.

Over all of these options looms the specter of AI, and here the picture is more muddy. Do “pink collar” jobs persist as alternatives to the experience of chatbots, or do we automate those functions? Does post-secondary education become mandatory for jobs handling AIs, which I’ve been calling “AI wranglers”? If automation depresses the labor force, do we come to see college as a gamble on scoring a rare, well paying job?

I’ll stop here. My thanks to Marketplace for the kind interview on a vital topic.

*My audio quality isn’t the best because I fumbled the recording. Sigh.

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June 26, 2025
International students benefit local economies, and this extends to those living and working there

Universities once again find themselves in the crosshairs of a political argument around migration.

I suspect no one on these pages needs convincing of the benefits international students bring to the UK: the diversity and vibrancy they add to our campuses, the fees that help our finances add up so we can carry out research and teach home students, the wider economic impact they bring through their fees and their spending in the UK economy, and the long term soft power of goodwill and friendship that our international alumni generate.

And there is plenty of public opinion research – for example from Public First and UUK in 2023, from King’s College London in 2024, and from British Future in 2025 – that shows that the British public supports international student migration, thinks it brings economic benefits, and doesn’t see cutting numbers as a priority.

But we have to be clear that we are losing the political argument on the value of international students – as have our HE colleagues in Canada, Australia and the US in recent months.

A local industry

This is the case despite the hard facts we have about the positive impacts of international students, including the £42 billion aggregate (2021–22 numbers) annual economic benefit estimated by London Economics. But those facts may not be enough as the political climate changes; we need to be agile in responding to where the political debate is moving.

For example, we understand that the aggregate economic impact of international students is not disputed within the government. But they are not convinced that positive impacts are felt at the local level. So what do these big, aggregate numbers mean for citizens at the local level? To address that question, the University of York commissioned some rapid work from Public First – building on the London Economics modelling – to show the benefits of international students at constituency level, both as an export industry, and in their impact on domestic living standards.

The first part of this work was published a few weeks ago at the heart of the debate around the final stages of the immigration white paper. This showed that international higher education is one of our most important export industries. This was counterintuitive for many politicians – who generally think of exports as goods or services which we trade overseas. But in fact, every international student coming and living in the UK is an “export” – bringing in foreign currency and supporting our economy.

Politicians rightly champion our other UK exports – our cars, our pharmaceuticals, our creative industries. But across the country, higher education is just as, if not more important. We showed that in 26 parliamentary constituencies around the country, higher education is the single largest export industry – and it is in the top three in a total of 102 constituencies, spread around the country. To put it another way, in many towns and cities, higher education is the car plant, or the steel mill, or the pharmaceuticals factory that drives local economies.

We hear that this evidence of real local impact was significant within Whitehall, and contributed to seeing off some of the wider proposals for restricting student flows that could have been in the immigration white paper.

Pounds in pockets

The second half of this research, published today, takes on some of the critique we know has been advanced in government in recent months: that while students may bring economic value in some abstract, aggregate way at national level, there are costs that are felt locally in our towns and cities that reduce living standards.

Our analysis comprehensively debunks that. Instead, we show that international students are net contributors to the taxpayer, and that at the local level they raise wages and living standards for domestic residents. We calculate that every worker in the UK has higher wages to the value of almost £500 a year purely as a result of international students’ economic contribution. And in more than 100 constituencies, the benefit is much larger, equating to more than two and a half weeks’ wages for the average worker.

These local-level impacts are often well-recognised by MPs and councillors. They are not yet in national-level debate. So we will continue to make the case for the wider benefits of international students for our towns and cities as well as abstract national GDP figures.

In addition, we need to push back against the misguided assumptions in the white paper that the proposed new international students levy would have only a minor impact on recruitment, and show in detail why the reduction in numbers would be large, and carry with it an economic loss that would go way beyond universities’ gates and into their local communities. We are pleased to be working alongside colleagues in the sector to do just that.

In all this we need to recognise the politics of the moment. All governments are political. That is how they got there, and to be so isn’t wrong! We have a government focused at the moment on its electoral prospects, and many of its actions can be explained by a drive to keep its voting coalition together, especially with the insurgent threat of Reform, and especially on the highly politicised issue of migration.

Universities are well advised to steer clear of party politics. As a vice chancellor, I work without fear or favour to support the needs of staff and students, but also the city and communities around York. But my academic background is as a political scientist so I’m a keen observer of how universities, migration, and their intersection have electoral significance. So, looking at the 100 constituencies we identify in our research which benefit the most from international students either as an export, or in rising domestic wages, it is noteworthy that over 80 per cent of those constituencies are currently held by Labour MPs, often by very narrow margins.

In those and the many other constituencies where international students bring real, tangible economic benefits, it is important that local citizens and political representatives understand what is at stake when widely held public concerns about migration lead to the targeting a group – international students – who the public both think highly of, and who make a big contribution to local economies.

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June 23, 2025
Phone bans proliferate as digital media’s harm to students grows clearer

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Even as school cellphone bans proliferate, a growing body of evidence suggests digital media — and cellphone use specifically — is harming child and teen development.

A meta-analysis of 117 studies published in June found that the relationship between screen time and socioemotional well-being is somewhat of a Catch-22: Increased screen time can lead to emotional and behavioral problems, and children with those problems rely on screens to cope with them.

Another study of 4,285 U.S. teens published last week found nearly a third showed increasing addictive behaviors related to social media and almost a quarter for cellphones. These addictive behaviors — rather than screen time alone — were linked to increased risks of suicidal behaviors or thoughts.

School phone bans have gained traction across political divides nationwide in recent years, with educators and lawmakers citing both student mental health and academic performance as reasons to restrict cellphones during the school day.

As of May, 21 states ranging from California to Utah had instituted a ban or limit on cellphones in the classroom, according to Ballotpedia.

Most recently, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a law requiring school districts to adopt policies regulating cellphone use during the school day and limiting classroom cellphone use in most cases.

A separate study released in March — this time examining about 1,500 11- to 13-year-olds in Florida, where cellphones have been banned during class time since 2023 — suggested that restricting cell phones would boost grades and mental health for children who use screens more heavily.

The 22% of Florida students surveyed who reported using their favorite app for six or more hours per day were also three times more likely to report getting mostly D’s and F’s than their peers.

Those students were also 6 times more likely than less-frequent users to report severe depression symptoms — even when ruling out factors like age, household income, gender, parent education, race and ethnicity.

Students who always had their cellphone push notifications turned on, which made up about 20% of the sample, were also more likely to report worse grades and to experience anxiety.

“Banning students’ access to phones at school means these kids would not receive notifications for at least that seven-hour period and have fewer hours in the day to use apps,” the study’s authors wrote in an overview of the study published by The Conversation, a nonprofit publication written by academic experts.

However, that same study found 17% of Florida students who attend schools that ban or confiscate phones report severe depressive symptoms, quadruple the 4% who attended schools that allowed limited phone use and reported those symptoms.

Correlation in this case did not necessarily mean causation, however. “We are not suggesting that our survey shows phone bans cause mental health problems,” the authors wrote. “It is possible, for instance, that the schools where kids already were struggling with their mental health simply happened to be the ones that have banned phones. ”

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June 23, 2025
The students most likely to drop out – Campus Review

A randomised control trial has found that early intervention support for highly disengaged first-year equity students does not necessarily lead to higher participation.

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June 23, 2025
$Texas Students Make Gains in Reading but Struggle with Math, STAAR Scores Show – The 74$

Texas Students Make Gains in Reading but Struggle with Math, STAAR Scores Show – The 74

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Texas’ students saw some wins in reading but continued to struggle to bounce back from pandemic-related learning losses in math, state testing results released Tuesday showed.

Elementary students who took the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam this year made the biggest gains in reading across grade levels. Third graders saw a three percentage point increase in reading, a milestone because early literacy is a strong indicator of future academic success. Progress among middle students in the subject, meanwhile, slowed.

“These results are encouraging and reflect the impact of the strategic supports we’ve implemented in recent years,” said Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath. “We are seeing meaningful signs of academic recovery and progress.”

This year’s third grade test takers have benefited from state investments in early literacy in recent years. Teachers in their classrooms have completed state-led training in early literacy instruction, known as reading academies. The state also expanded pre-K access and enrollment in 2019.

Morath did acknowledge students needed more help to make similar gains in math. Five years after pandemic-related school closures, students are still struggling to catch up in that subject, the results showed. About 43% of students met grade-level standards for math, a 2 percentage point increase from the previous year, but still shy of the 50% reached in 2019.

Low performance in math can effectively shut students out of high-paying, in-demand STEM careers. Economic leaders have been sounding the alarm about the implications that weak math skills can have on the state’s future workforce pipeline.

The STAAR exam tests all Texas public school students in third through eighth grade in math and reading. A science test is also administered for fifth and eighth graders, as well as a social studies test for eighth graders. Science performance improved among fifth and eighth grades by 3 and 4 percentage points respectively, but students in those grades are still below where they were before the pandemic.

Students in special education also made small gains. English learners, meanwhile, saw drops in all subjects but one — a 4% decrease in reading, a 2% decrease in math, and a 2% decrease in social studies.

The test scores give families a snapshot of how Texas students are learning. School accountability ratings — which the Texas Education Agency gives out to each district and campus on an A through F scale as a score for their performance — are also largely based on how students do on the standardized tests.

The test often casts a shadow over classrooms at the end of the year, with teachers across the state saying they lose weeks of valuable instructional time preparing children to take the test. Some parents also don’t like the test because of its high-stakes nature. They have said their kids don’t want to go school because of the enormous pressure the hours-long, end-of-year test puts on them.

A bill that would have scrapped the STAAR test died in the last days of the 2025 legislative session. Both Republican and Democratic legislators expressed a desire to overhaul STAAR, but in the end, the House and Senate could not align on what they wanted out of an alternative test.

Legislators this session did approve a sweeping school finance package that included academic intervention for students who are struggling before they first take their STAAR test in third grade. The package also requires teachers get training in math instruction, mirroring existing literacy training mandates.

Parents can look up their students’ test results here.

Graphics by Edison Wu

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

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June 22, 2025
Assignments for Politically Disaffected Students (opinion)

Joe Rogan is no fan of my work, obviously. The chart-topping conservative influencer famously insists that universities are “cult camps” where professors like me indoctrinate students with leftist ideas. Typically, I do not worry about my haters, but increasingly it seems that if I want to create a meaningful learning experience, I need to.

I teach first-year undergraduate humanities electives. Like most universities, ours offers large-format 200-student lectures for training in academic writing and critical theory. This would be the “indoctrination” in question, as I introduce students to canonical thinkers from Karl Marx to Sylvia Wynter. These electives are degree requirements, snaring students who might intentionally avoid liberal arts in an otherwise professional degree.

In the current political climate, many of my students come to the classroom with their minds made up based on authorities who directly undermine my scholarship and profession. Rogan is just one of many conservative anti-intellectuals who regularly attack liberal, feminist, social justice–oriented biases in university education. The result is a polarized atmosphere antithetical to learning: a tangibly mistrustful, sometimes even resentful classroom.

Although only a small handful of students typically adhere to anti-intellectual doctrine, their small group undermines my authority with risky jokes in the classroom and intense criticism in student back channels (as reported by concerned classmates). This causes undecided students to falter in their trust of my authority, while students who do not share their views nervously censor their contributions.

Ironically, my dissenting students often do not recognize that I am interested in their views. I am convinced that the way out of this explosive historic moment is through rigorous discussion in educational forums. Like any academic, this is why I teach: I love sincere inquiry, debate and critical engagement, and I was a rabble-rouser myself as a student. But the current classroom mood is less debate and more deadlock.

So, I spent this year brainstorming with my students to build creative assignments to spin resentment into passion, no matter how opposite my own, welcoming self-directed research and encouraging deeply engaged reading. I offer any one of these assignments, with the goal to bring disaffected, anxious students back to a love of learning and democratized engagement. This is a work in progress, and I welcome suggestions.

Turn Tensions Into Data: This introductory exercise eases students into an atmosphere of open collegial discussion. Surveys or anonymous polls quantify disagreements, and then we analyze the results as a class.

Example: Class Belief Inventory—anonymously poll students on hot-button questions (e.g., “Is systemic racism a major problem?”). The objective here would be to compare the class’s responses to national survey data. Potential discussion topics: Why might differences exist? What shapes our perceptions?

Hostile Influencers as Primary Sources: This in-class activity treats figures like Rogan or Jordan Peterson not as adversaries but as authors of texts to analyze, to disarm defensiveness and position students as critical investigators.

Example: “Compare/contrast an episode of [X podcast] with a peer-reviewed article on the same topic. How do their arguments differ in structure, evidence and rhetoric? Whom do you find more persuasive, and why?”

Gamifying Ideological Tensions: This class activity turns assigned readings into structured, rule-bound games where students must defend positions they don’t personally hold.

Example: Role-Play a Summit—Students are assigned roles (e.g., Jordan Peterson, bell hooks, climate scientist, TikTok influencer) and must collaborate to solve a fictional problem (e.g., redesigning a curriculum). They must cite course readings to justify their choices.

Therapy for Arguments: This fun early activity teaches students to diagnose weak arguments—whether from Rogan, a feminist theorist or you—using principles of logic.

Example: Argument Autopsy—Students dissect a viral social media post, podcast clip or course reading. Identify logical fallacies, cherry-picked evidence or unstated assumptions. Reward students for critiquing all sides.

Intellectual Sleuthing: This is a scaffolded midterm writing assignment building up to a final essay. Ask students to trace the origins of their favorite influencers’ ideas. Many anti-establishment figures borrow from (or distort) academic theories—show students how to connect the dots.

Example: Genealogy of an Idea—Pick a claim from a podcast (e.g., “universities indoctrinate students”). Research its history: When was this idea popular in mainstream news or on social media? Are there any institutes, think tanks, influencers or politicians associated with this idea? What are the stated missions and goals of those sources? Where do they get their funding? Which academics agree or disagree, and why?

Leverage “Forbidden Topics” as Case Studies: If students resent “liberal bias,” lean into it: make bias itself the subject of analysis. This might work as a discussion prompt for tutorials or think-pair-share group work.

Example: “Is This Reading Biased?”—Assign a short text students might call “woke” (e.g., feminist theory) and a countertext (e.g., Peterson’s critique of postmodernism). Have students evaluate both using a rubric: What counts as bias? Is objectivity possible? How do they define “truth”?

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Assignments: The final essay assignment gives students agency to explore topics they care about, even if they critique my field. Clear guardrails are important here to ensure rigor.

Example: Passion Project: Students design a research question related to the course—even if it challenges the course’s assumptions. They must engage with three or more course texts and two or more outside sources, as in favorite influencers or authorities, even those who oppose course themes.

Red Team vs. Blue Team: For essays, students submit two versions: one arguing their personal view and one arguing the counterpoint. Grading is based on how well they engage evidence, not their stance.

Elisha Lim is an assistant professor of the technological humanities at York University in Toronto. They used generative AI tools to assist with the editing of this piece.

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June 20, 2025