What we know about the Class of 2024

Get to know this year’s first year students in this short bonus podcast episode looking at their attitudes and confidence levels.

In July, Unite Students launched the 2024 Applicant Index: an in-depth look at the needs and concerns of this year’s university applicants.

We recorded an episode about the findings at the time – now, as these applicants take up their places at university, we’re sharing our full interview with Nick Hillman, Director at the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) to give you even more insights into your first-year students.

Host Jenny Shaw and Nick get into topics including:

• Trends we’re seeing across three years of Applicant Index data
• How this year’s applicants feel about finance
• The impact of socioeconomic disparity on applicant confidence
• The future of Higher Education

You can listen to the episode, or read the transcript, below.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are the personal views of individual guest speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unite Students and/or Unite Group plc. 

Episode transcript: ‘What we know about the Class of 2024’

Jenny Shaw: With thousands of new students starting their courses, we are of course in the busiest time of year for student accommodation and just for Higher Education in general. I do hope you’re holding up okay, and I want you to know you’re doing a really great job.

I also wanted to share with you the full version of the interview with HEPI Director Nick Hillman that we recorded back in July. We covered just such a lot of ground in a short time, such as the level of hesitance among applicants and what this is going to mean for this year’s freshers, how your social and economic background still affects your time at university, the challenges for higher education in a time of constrained resources and what the new government might do. Now, bear in mind this was recorded two weeks after the election, so let’s see how Nick’s predictions hold up!

The need to expand Higher Education over the coming years, what that might mean and the goals of a relentless optimist, which to be honest describes both of us. And finally, how student accommodation can create lifelong memories, which we all know to be true. I do hope you enjoy it.

So I’m here with Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, the Higher Education Policy Institute. And Nick, it’s really great to talk with you about the survey because we’ve been working together for the last seven years I think it is, on understanding the applicant experience. Why is this something that you think is important?

Nick Hillman: Look, I love this survey and I love it. Partly not because of my current job, but because of my first job after university and my first job after university was being a secondary school teacher and I did run a pre university course – this is going back to the mid 1990s. The level of information available and the understanding of what young people were expecting about higher education at the time was minimal to non-existent.

And over the years of course we’ve become really good at grilling and polling students official surveys like the National Student Survey and things like the HEPI/Advance HE Student Academic Experience Survey and got really good at polling, at least undergraduates, but we’ve been much less good at grilling the people on their way to university.

The reason it’s so important in my opinion is if you look, for example, at our other really big survey, the Student Academic Experience Survey, that we do with Advance HE, it shows a big disconnect between what people think Higher Education is going to be like and what it’s really like, what the applicant survey allows us to do is find out what people currently in sixth forms (in old money), who have submitted a UCAS form, expect Higher Education to be like. And I think that’s really useful to them themselves, but also to their teachers, their parents, careers advisors and to universities.

Jenny: What do you think the value is of having this kind of data for universities/Higher Education providers?

Nick: Well, I think it’s huge because of course admissions is a really big function of universities and in a way a bigger function in our country than other countries, because in many other countries you typically go to your local university and you often stay living at home. So it’s a much less big transition point in your lives. Whereas here we have this very hierarchical system. Not every course is available in every part of the country. We have very selective universities and less selective universities. And so getting that match between the person and the course and the institution right is really, really important.

But as I say, we haven’t known as much about applicants as we might have done. And so I think it’s really valuable to universities and I think it also allows universities to think about the incoming cohort. So, for example, some of the qualitative comments in this year’s survey about Covid and how young people feel that affected their education is useful intelligence for the universities that are going to be educating these people from next year to have. Because not every cohort was affected by Covid in the same way, and this tells us what this year’s incoming cohort feel.

Jenny: And of course one of the challenges of doing an annual survey is that there is this chance that not a lot is going to move from one year to another, but actually we have seen some definite changes in confidence and behaviour this year. Is there anything that particularly stood out to you?

Nick: Yes, you are right. I mean there is always a challenge with longitudinal surveys because some things don’t change very much from year to year until you have a real shock to the system, like Covid for example. And then suddenly the value of a longitudinal survey proves itself. But of course your survey is much more than just asking exactly the same questions year on year because you do have space for topical questions and drilling further down.

This year, for example, I’m really struck by how the report drills down more deeply than before into the international student experience, which in some respects is exactly the same as for domestic students and in some ways is rather different. And of course there are changes in the data this year and I think some of them are interesting.

I mean some of the ones linked to employability and how young people are a little bit more confident about the labour market, which partly reflects the reality that students – including sixth formers, sometimes – now have to have jobs on the side. And that has positives, because it makes people more employable. It also has negatives if those extra hours of paid work on top of your academic work, either as a sixth former or as a student, are disrupting either your academic work or indeed your ability to do extracurricular activities.

I was also struck by the finding that people’s concerns around the financial situation, the cost of living might be corrupting – and I use that word carefully, but I do use it… Corrupting people’s choices about what and where to study. Because the way the UK system is meant to work is that everybody gets similar entitlement, maintenance support whether it comes from government or parents or whatever, and that frees them up to study anywhere in the country they would like to study. And we’ve already seen in recent years, for example in London, far more students choosing to live home and go to their local university for financial reasons.

And I’m worried there’s some data in the survey that suggests that that could be affecting more and more people and it’s fine to live at home and go to your local university if that’s what you want to do and if they’ve got a course you want to do, brilliant. But if you are only doing it for financial reasons, or you are only doing it because your family is poorer than the next door family whose children have more options, I think that’s a matter of concern because what you choose and what you do at university can – not always, but it can – affect the rest of your life.

Jenny: Absolutely. You mentioned earlier the Student Academic Experience Survey, which you do each year with Advance HE. Are there any points of connection or comparison between the two surveys this year do you think?

Nick: Yes. I mean, so for example, some of the data in the Applicant Index show some trends returning to pre-pandemic levels, for example around wellbeing. And that’s similar to the Advance HE/HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey, where a lot of the numbers now are pretty much back to where they were pre-pandemic. And in some respects that sounds really positive, because the world before the pandemic was better than the world during the pandemic. So it’s good that we’re back there.

But if you are an optimist and if you think education should always be getting better, and if you think young people’s life chances should always be getting better, I would actually like to see the numbers surpassing the pre-pandemic levels. I don’t think our goal should be solely to revert the entire education system back to exactly what it was pre-pandemic. I think we should be constantly striving to improve opportunities and choices and options for young people.

So I think it is a good thing that both the Applicant Index and the Student Academic Experience Survey shows a bit of a reversion to the status quo ante, pre-pandemic. But I don’t think that should be our goal. I think as a sector, we should be hoping and doing things that mean both those surveys have more positive outcomes in future.

Jenny: That’s so interesting because when I was looking at the data, one thing that really stood out to me and made me actually feel quite positive was that the rate of applicants with a mental health condition had not gone up. And I thought, this is fantastic, but you’re right. We think that’s a great result, but actually it should be getting better and it’s not.

Nick: Hopefully, I mean I think you are committed to the Applicant Index for the long term and we’re committed to our survey for the long term. So hopefully we’ll be able to track those trends.

I mean on that point, Jenny, another thing that really stood out for me on the survey, and it came up a lot in the webinar that you and we at HEPI jointly hosted on the day of the launch of the Index, is this point about data sharing. Because it’s not always the case, but it’s often the case that data sharing between a school or a college and a university can be really positive. So if you have particular needs and your teachers and your staff and your school or your college really understand you as a person and your needs – and that information can be shared with the university and that can be very positive.

It’s not always positive. Sometimes people have outgrown school or college and want a completely clean break when they go up to Higher Education. I get that. But I think one almost shocking finding in your Index I think is the high proportion of applicants who think this data is routinely shared, when it just isn’t because of data protection. And there are good arguments on both sides. There are good arguments for sharing it. There are bad arguments for sharing it, at least without people’s permission.

But it seems to be an expectation that this information is shared very often when it simply isn’t. And any applicant or parent or teacher or advisor listening to this, I would always urge them as I do when I go into schools to encourage young people to tell their future university about any needs they have.

If they’re nervous about doing that at the time of the initial UCAS application, which may be when it’s best to do, still do it over the summer, it may be your university can’t put the support you need in place, but at least give them a chance to do so. And if you haven’t told them that you have needs and priorities, then they at least have a start to be able to try to get some support in place and check in on you once you’re there.

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So, talking about that move from schools and further education to Higher Education, this was something that Polly Harrow, the Further Education Student Support Champion talked about on the webinar. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this is a direction that the new government are going to take us in that closer working relationship between the two sectors?

Nick: Yes. I get asked all the time, what is the new government going to do in relation to Higher Education? In fact, I’ve made a whole speech at the Open University the other day on this, but it’s all guesswork if we’re honest. I mean the incoming government, it clearly worked for political reasons, didn’t have a very well developed Higher Education plan oncoming to office, and they’ve appointed a minister in Jacqui Smith who is incredibly experienced and will really know how to get the Whitehall machine working for her agenda.

But we don’t yet… Now, I’m not making any criticism of her, I mean it would be the same for anybody who’s only been in the job for two weeks. We don’t yet know what her agenda is going to be and nor do we really know what the agenda of the Office for Students is going to be because the chair resigned immediately after the election. So we don’t have a chair and we haven’t yet seen the ministerial letters instructing the Office for Students of the current government’s priorities.

But clearly the government has already tried to send a signal that they want to do everything they can to deliver student success. I mean, look, for example, at some of the appointments they’ve made, some of the announcements they’ve made in the schools area about curriculum redesign and things like that, some of the efforts they’ve made to recalibrate the quality, the relationship with the educational workforce, both in schools and universities.

So clearly they want to row with the sector rather than against the sector and ask the sector what needs and priorities they have. But I think it is just too early to say. I’ll get egg on my face if I say the government is going to do A, B and C.

Jenny: No, thank you. So mindful of our listeners, is there anything that you think accommodation teams should be doing differently this year?

Nick: Well, I think that is a good question. I mean, very often you say this year with the emphasis on this year, I mean very often I think the support that accommodation teams should be putting in place – I’m not sure they differ so much from year to year. Obviously they were different during Covid.

I mean one area of the Index that we haven’t yet talked about is belonging and loneliness and some of the data in the report’s not too bad on that actually, but with a very significant minority saying they’re worried they won’t belong when they get to university. They might feel lonely when they get to university. And in all honesty, that was my experience when I went to university in 1990, I bizarrely ended up in a block in my hall of residence that was people almost entirely postgraduate students who are a lot older than me.

And I found it quite hard to integrate to begin with. And I think those of us who had that experience should talk about that because it normalises it. And in the end, my three years at university were among the happiest three years of my life and I loved it, but it took time for me to find my feet.

And when I look back at my Higher Education, and I think this is true for very many people, I actually don’t think so much about the lecture halls. I think more about the friends I met in my accommodation, the social life I had. Yes, I think about my course as well, of course. I wouldn’t be doing the job I do today if I didn’t have my degrees, but the social life and the things that brought reward and personal fulfilment by my Higher Education very often came in the living space.

And so I think it’s the same old messaging, really, of what can you do to make people’s diving into Higher Education as smooth as possible? And it might be social events, it might be personal relationships, clarity of knowing where to get the support.

And also, and of course this has come through some other Unite Students work, making sure when you have the right procedures, they are actually applied. It came through in your Living Black at University work that sometimes the procedures written down were actually pretty impressive, but they weren’t always being followed through in practise. So the staff and the students need to know what those procedures are and there needs to be transparency and accountability on those procedures.

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. I took away the big differential across the socioeconomic groups around that expectation of belonging. Was there anything you thought about that?

Nick: Yeah, I’m glad you raised that, Jenny, because, and I try to refer to this in my foreword when I say if equity is the goal in education, we’ve still got a long way to go. And actually, although you link those differential outcomes by socioeconomic group to the section on belonging and loneliness – actually, probably the single most depressing bit of the report and it shows its value, is that it comes through in pretty much every chapter, actually, that there’s a difference.

And now I’m not completely surprised by that because we know if you are a first in family student and you’re from a poorer background and you have less expectation of what’s coming, we know there are greater challenges. But that is a responsibility for, yes, accommodation providers, but also universities, student unions, the regulator, John Blake and his team in the access and participation part of the Office for Students to consider.

The challenge here is people spend their time – and of course we do this at HEPI too – saying universities should do this and universities should do that, and universities must do this and universities must do that. But the funding situation for universities is very challenging at the moment. And every time a minister says there should be more mental health support or universities should take some of the pressure off the NHS or there should be more career support for undergraduates, it costs money.

I know universities always say they don’t have enough money. They always say that, even when they are quite well funded. But the reality at the moment is they don’t have enough money. £9,250 pounds in 2024 is very, very, very much less than £9,000 pounds was in 2012, which is that the fee for full-time undergraduate students in England. So we do have to recognise the resource constraints as well.

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else that you wanted to say, Nick, before we close the interview?

Nick: Well, no, not really. Just to say, I mean, I think it is a very, very useful survey to reiterate my comment that I don’t think our goal here should be to get all the numbers back to the pre-Covid world, but to make continual improvements.

Although I don’t envy the new incoming government and the challenges they face, there is a good moment for all of us who care about policy and Higher Education here because there’s a new team of ministers who will have a different set of priorities. The outgoing government, whatever its strengths, were not huge fans of the British university sector and had slightly lost interest even in their own policies in this space and were focusing on other things. So there is a great opportunity here to recalibrate things.

One thing we haven’t touched upon Jenny, which some of the media coverage of the report focused on was the proportion of people in your survey who – by definition, they’ve submitted a UCAS form, they think university is a possibility who are saying they still might not go. And I actually think most of them probably will go because university is still a life-transforming experience and will set them up very often for life in an interesting professional career.

But even if they say, I might not go and they still go, it’s still useful to know that they were thinking they might not go. That tells us something about uncertainty and nervousness about going and might make them more likely to drop out when they get there. And that would be regrettable. I mean, drop out rates are very low actually in the UK because in general young people are resilient and do everything they can to avoid dropping out. But I think we just need to watch those numbers very closely.

People who are doubting the wisdom of going to university, even though they are already on the university track and our separate survey, the Student Academic Experience Survey with Advance HE suggests 60% of students after they’ve enrolled are happy with their course and their university. But that does mean the 40% are not willing to say they’re happy with their course and the university and might have made a different set of choices if they were having their time again. And I think when you set that aside, your numbers on people who’ve submitted a UCAS form and saying, “Well, I still might not go,” that is an area we all need to think a lot more about.

And I’m very proud actually that HEPI is now working with Nicola Dandridge, now a visiting professor at the University of Bristol and her team to get under the skin of this question of regret. Do too many people regret their choices? How can we reduce regret? What lessons are there for people working with people before they become students? And so I know that you are committed to this agenda, we are committed to this agenda and a lot of other people are committed to this agenda as well.

So I’m optimistic. And of course the other thing we haven’t discussed but is really important, and I say this is a parent of a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old, is the number of 18-year-olds is set to continue growing every year until 2030. So even if we don’t expand access to Higher Education into areas of our society that haven’t had it in the past, we need more places. And I jolly well hope we can expand it to communities that have been underrepresented in Higher Education too.

So I continue to be an expansionist, but that has resource implications too. It also means that a higher proportion of students might arrive knowing even less about what Higher Education is like. And I think that’s a question, another question for us all to continue addressing.

Jenny: Nick Hillman, thank you. And that’s a wrap. Thank you to Ed Palmer and to Jen Steadman that make this show happen. And of course to Nick Hillman for the interview. And thanks to you as always for listening.

Now, if you enjoy the show, you might be interested to know that we have our very first live show coming up. Thanks to the fabulous GSL team, we will be recording at the GSL Conference in front of a live audience, and that’s on 17th October. We’d love to see you there and I believe that there are still tickets available for the day. So do go and grab one if you can.

And who knows, you might even get to feature on the recording itself – but if you can’t be there, we will be putting the episode out later in October so you can catch it then. Until next time, you take care.