Higher education’s haves and have-nots have been classified in many ways over the decades: working class versus middle class; poor versus rich; first in family to go to university versus the latest in a long family line to go to university; and low versus high higher education participation postcode.
But in the post-pandemic a new academic divide has emerged: the commuter student versus the on-campus student. These two types of scholars may be studying in the same academic institution, but they may as well be living separate parallel lives. One is navigating the daily demands of travel and balancing the complexities of academic and home life. The other is more likely to be fully immersed in university life, enjoying all the social and extracurricular enrichment that may bring. These are higher education’s new outsiders and insiders. While many fortunate students rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad, others are living with Mum or Dad, or are themselves Mum or Dad.
The relentless rise of the commuter student is the product of two separate growing forces shaping the modern higher education landscape: first, a cost of learning crisis that has rendered student life unaffordable to all but a privileged few; second, the rapid march of computing capacity that has promised unprecedented remote access to information and learning resources. Many students commute to university out of necessity to alleviate the financial burden associated with the escalating costs of university accommodation; in theory they can study for much of their degrees from a computer screen in their own room.
