Now that’s what I call The Secret Life of Students 2025

We’ve been thinking big this week about a new vision for the student experience, and about students doing better and getting better. We’ll be publishing more on that later in the year.

There’s a new (ish) government, a commitment to access and student success alongside a growth agenda grounded in devolution and skills. And with many challenges across the sector when it comes to financial sustainability and capacity there is no better time to imagine a vision for the full-time student experience.

Across the day we were honing in on the importance of understanding the distinctiveness of the student experience. If we properly understand students’ lives, from application to graduation, on the bus to campus, in the GP and in the classroom, we can work towards an ambitious and positive vision for students’ participation in higher education.

For those that couldn’t make it to the Secret Life of Students, or just forgot to scribble down notes, here’s some of the key takeaways.

What students don’t know

If we take a lot of the challenges students face right now as read – cost of living crisis, cost of participation, housing, belonging, and so on – how do we create a student experience and learning environment that makes education richer and deeper rather than makes it cheaper and more diluted?

A good starting point is often about information, providing students with the necessary “need-to-know” stuff in order for them to succeed. For many providers in England following the TEF process, they have outlined what they consider “educational gains” or in other words the skills graduates should receive as a result of studying at their institutions.

Often the skills needed to navigate the transitional experience of university – for most not all – is lacking.

Induction is often incredibly scattered and in overloading students with information in day one and two, universities lose them early on – instead how can induction be considered as a process rather than an event?

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International secrets

At the event we heard from Sanam Arora from the National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK – she said that many international students arrive in the UK with high hopes, only to face harsh realities that are often overlooked in promotional materials.

The financial strain is immense – many students take on part-time jobs that barely cover rent and basic necessities, often leading to deteriorating health, stress, and, in some cases, a premature return to their home country.

The high cost of living, poor-quality housing, and unpredictable working conditions make life difficult, and social isolation, racism, and mental health challenges add to the burden. Compounding those struggles is the “limited return on investment” for a UK master’s degree – many employers do not consider a one-year MSc to be equivalent to a two-year master’s in other countries, reducing its value in the job market.

But discussing the issues is fraught with difficulty. UK universities have an interest in attracting international students, meaning negative experiences are rarely highlighted. Students themselves may fear backlash for speaking out, and reps’ credibility is often questioned – we often hear of officers facing demands for extensive proof of systemic problems – proof that is difficult to provide when many issues are informal or unspoken.

Perhaps, as a result, a culture of silence persists – where universities, employers, and immigration officials all recognise the problems but have little incentive to address them.

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Story time

Throughout the day we featured a number of student stories – including one from Paige Rivers, the Health, Social Care & Medicine President at Edge Hill Students’ Union, who explored the realities of being a student nurse and what a renewed health agenda for government and the sector might look like.

We also heard from Liam White, the President at Surrey SU who discussed student support and the ways in which challenge and struggle are often used to justify inaccessible courses and campuses. Meanwhile Molly Pemberton, President-elect at Hallam SU spoke about the challenges facing commuter students, and Mihita Parekh, Education Officer at MDXSU discussed belonging, isolation and misogyny in higher education – and the impact that can have.

They were alla reminder that facts and stats matter – but it’s often stories that bring home what it’s really like to be a student.

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Where did the time go?

Students are time poor. But we know they benefit from participating in things like clubs and societies, volunteering, being a course rep and even part time work.

How can universities give credit to those students who are doing extra without costing them?

The answer lies somewhere in adapting structures – timetabling, course credits, placements – to students’ lived realities which are often being overloaded with part time work and additional responsibilities. They can participate without the cost and identity and develop the skills they’re gaining at the same time.

There’s a strategy for that

A strategy isn’t a solution to all by any means. And it can work in a few different ways which we saw at Secret Life.

A strategy or vision can be about SUs capturing and mobilising students around different objectives, streamlining campaigns and pushing students towards organising with others to address shared problems. King’s SU have done some great work on this.

It can also be about setting a manifesto for the student experience and plotting a roadmap for the student experience. It can be about being bold to create the best student life in the world, which is what The SU Bath have been up to.

Or a strategy can be a safeguard. Instead of realising ambition it’s about realising realities and things like a student living strategy in towns and cities ensures that there’s bed planning so that no student is without a home.

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Citizens not tourists

And on the topic of strategies, what’s often missing in the towns and cities where students live, work and study is any form of agreement or partnership between the university and the city.

Students’ experience is inherently geographical. It’s about the town or city where they apply and where they get the bus, where they rent, where they go to the GP, where they can vote.

When we think about how students are seen by their towns and cities, it’s often through the lens of rubbish noise complaints and the night time economy.

And the benefits of having students in towns and cities is focused on spending power and graduate retention but if universities are anchoring institutions, what about students as an anchoring population?

Local authorities know very little about students, about who is graduating, the demographics of students, how many bed spaces they need and often do little more than consultation when designing services. What a good student city looks like is one where university isn’t a pit stop in their journey, it’s a landing ground.

City and university partnerships, civic agreements and opportunities for students to engage in civic policy making and advocacy are important next steps for students to feel better supported in their towns and cities but also to feel more like citizens and not tourists.

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Students aren’t homogenous

In order to make these visions realities it’s about looking at service provision and design for all intersecting groups. We didn’t have time to get into this all at Secret Life but we did dive deeper into international, disabled and PGR student experience.

On international, there’s lots of policy uncertainty right now however what cut through was the importance of meeting expectations, particularly around career opportunities post graduation.

For disabled students there are new legal expectations around reasonable adjustments that are often inconsistently applied across institutions.

What’s important for institutions and SUs to be looking at is the EHRC advice note and recommendations which includes, but is not limited to, not requiring medical evidence to make reasonable adjustments, student facing staff to be trained on the symptoms of mental health crises and that all staff at an institution are responsible once a student discloses a disability.

And for postgraduate research students we learnt that there is often limited officer PGR representation but there’s green shoots. UKRI have recently published their new deal which improves the financial picture for PGRS (eight per cent increase in the stipend) and the wider PGR student experience through increasing leave time, increased study flexibility and more policies on wellbeing and fairness.

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Burn the committees

And finally in some of our closing sessions our panellists considered how to take these new visions to reality, what change needs to happen and what could that actually look like?

How do you effectively listen to students? Is it always necessary to have a student or an officer on every single committee, at what point is it partnership and when does it become a tick box exercise? Jim went as far to suggest module evaluation should be mandatory.

This isn’t about making feedback an oppressive exercise but instead building a commitment to educational partnership and normalising what it means to be an engaged learner.

Student representation works best when there’s universal engagement rather than the voices of a loud few. Reps can then focus on problem-solving rather than evidence gathering.

And then onto the mechanisms to actually generate change, this often feels like it’s through a committee. And that works, sometimes, but it’s also often a blocker.

If institutions are effectively listening to and working with students to enhance their experience, how does the “enhancing” happen and if it’s through a six month committee with 70 pages of papers, it doesn’t feel effective.

Our panel reminded us of the successes of the sector when it came to the pandemic and the speed and effectiveness of changing delivery almost over a weekend – it’s possible. With more challenges for the sector that drive and that vision for students getting better is needed more than ever.