In this blog, Tom Lowe, Senior Lecturer in higher education at the University of Portsmouth, discuses the themes of his keynote speech at the forthcoming Advance HE Student Engagement Conference 2024.
Student enrolment into UK higher education continues to sustain high numbers, despite a growing cost of living and public debates about the value of a university education. Society’s promise to a prospective student on attending higher education can be summarised as university offering the ‘once in a lifetime experience’ and the ticket to a desired graduate outcome. Students give our institutions years of their lives and tens of thousands in tuition fees, and it is within this context that the modern university must adapt to continually meet expectations.
This April, Advance HE draws together sector colleagues for the 4th Student Engagement Conference where colleagues and student leaders will share best practice and reflections on fostering meaningful student engagement in 2024.
Questions face our universities for student engagement - where we address the balance between in-person on-campus engagement and online flexible models. Our students are facing stark challenges in affording the costs of simply being a student in a cost of living crisis, ending the prior stereotype of a student life of ample free time, being replaced with a growing need to work.
