600,000 Australian students feel detached from their university

It is a shocking statistic and it comes from the latest research by student support provider, Studiosity.

When asked how they felt about their university, 40% of the 1,200 respondents (predominantly domestic students at Australia’s public universities) reported feeling neutral or negative. The research findings have been weighted to reflect the university student population and therefore represent approximately 600,000 students.

Part of the reason for those high feelings of negativity and neutrality might be as a result of increasing number of students (86%) saying they are combining work and study (much higher than in the US or UK where figures range between 70-75%) and a higher proportion of students in the survey reported that they were combining carer responsibilities with their studies (25% versus 12% in the previous survey).

In their interim report the Universities Accord Panel also noted the significant size of Australian universities, warning that some are “approaching student numbers that will see them among the biggest in the world.”

They went on to caution that:

“Australia’s higher education system is incentivised to maximise the intake of international students and produce large student cohorts. This can be detrimental to the student experience for both international and domestic students, with large class sizes potentially diminishing students’ ability to connect with their peers and make lasting relationships throughout their studies.” (p. 81)

It was unsurprising therefore that in their final report the Panel found:

It was somewhat more surprising that the Panel also stated their support for the merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia and potential mergers of public universities in Western Australia:

Particularly when the Panel subsequently stated:

It will be left to the Australian Tertiary Education Commission to determine the future size and shape of the higher education sector, as per this recommendation from the Accord Panel:

Let’s hope that in doing this work ATEC has an appropriate focus on the student experience in our universities and that collectively the sector can better engage students and reduce their feelings of negativity and even neutrality about what should be such a critically formative experience for them.

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Claire Field was joined on the latest episode of the What now? What next? podcast by the CEO of Studiosity, Mike Larsen, to discuss the survey findings and what institutions can do to improve students’ feelings of connection and wellbeing.

Claire is also a PhD student at Torrens University Australia.