Yesterday, HEPI and Advance HE released the 2023 iteration of the annual Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES). The results always provide profound insight into student life and, with a sample size of over 10,000, they can be firmly relied upon for understanding how students are dealing with ‘the new normal’ after years heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps the most substantial discovery this year was how significantly the cost-of-living crisis is influencing the student experience. Three-in-four students have felt the effects of the economic climate, while over half have had to seek out paid work to support their studies.
To gain a first-hand insight into how this financial squeeze was affecting students, we spoke to Andrew Wilson – a LLB Law and Criminology student at the University of Derby and his Union of Students’ EDI Disability Officer. He said:
Everyone has [felt the effects of the cost-of-living crisis] really, and a lot of the students in my year have had to skip lectures to go to work, to pick up the shift so they can pay the bills. A lot of the books that we buy, we only need for one term or one part of the degree, and it’s not necessarily what we’re going into. For example, all the students on my course had to buy the land law book, but only perhaps five of the students want to study land law out of 100.
