Student experience is a phrase you’ll hear a lot if you eavesdrop on conversations in higher education. But what does it mean, and where did it come from?
In an article published in Sociological Review in 2020 Maike Pötschulat, Marie Moran and Paul Jones date the general adoption of the phrase to the early 2000s. They pinpoint its first use in a government policy document to 2003 (PDF). Here’s a quote from that paper:
“[The question] arises of why so many overseas students come [to the UK] to study. We believe that one reason is that the student experience is a good one. Research is not confined to research institutes but takes place in universities and colleges which also teach undergraduates. Much of the teaching takes place in relatively small groups with opportunity for individual contact with lecturers.”
So, clearly, at this point, in this context, it refers purely to academic issues. But, as Pötschulat, Moran and Jones go on to explain, it’s since acquired a range of different meanings:
“[Higher] education policy, university rankings, promotional material and academic literature all refer to the student experience as an index of something that needs to be borne in mind, safeguarded, or improved. Meanwhile, students’ own accounts of studenthood are filled with ‘student experience talk’; their use of the term to describe selective urban practices and sites diverges from institutional uses concerned with inter-university competition and recruitment.”
When the meaning of any phrase drifts, becomes distorted, or was never agreed up on in the first place, it can cause communication problems. (See also: ‘minimum viable product’.)
But it can also reveal tensions which are worth exploring.
What universities mean by student experience
To higher education (HE) institutions, student experience is about the institutional offer, which might prompt students to choose one university over another in an increasingly competitive, fee-paying HE market.
You’ll see the phrase on many, if not most, UK university websites, often in a prominent place on the homepage. It also appears in marketing products like brochures and prospectuses.
For example, the 2025 prospectus for the University of Bath (PDF) boasts that it is in the “Top 10 for student experience for Biological Sciences in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024”.
The phrase ‘student experience’ is also used in the conversation around the National Student Survey (NSS). This survey is run every year by the Office for Students (OfS) and partner bodies.
The University of Manchester urges students to complete the 2024 survey: “Tell us your thoughts to shape the student experience”.
And in response to the results of the 2023 survey many universities issued press releases with language like this from Liverpool John Moores University:
“LJMU is delivering an excellent student experience, according to impressive results in the National Student Survey (NSS) 2023… The Office for Students (OfS) has published the survey findings, which paint an extremely positive picture of the LJMU student experience, while helping us to identify some areas for improvement.”
Individual institutions also have their own student experience surveys, like Imperial College and Aberystwyth. The latter asks questions about things like:
- teaching
- learning
- assessment
- support
What students understand as their experience
Here’s the problem: for students the university experience is about more than teaching, facilities and efficient administration. It’s about the total experience of being away from home, probably in a new city, attempting to have an enjoyable, memorable time.
As Pötschulat, Moran and Jones observe:
“Private accommodation firms emphasise it in their marketing, promising ‘the perfect student experience’… or ‘getting the most out of your student experience’… Meanwhile, nightclub and events promoters explicitly use the term in their advertising of student nights, as do many newspaper and city-guides to student life, which invariably include pictures of nightclubs to accompany their list of two-for-one-drinks and other promotions… In such cases, and in contrast to its use in university policy documentation, ‘student experience’ seems to refer almost exclusively to students’ lives beyond the university.”
That’s borne out by a quick glance at the websites of property firms operating in Bristol, such as Urban Student, whose copy reads:
“Elevate your student experience with accommodation featuring premium amenities, central locations and ample study space.”
And media targeting students, such as the website unifresher.co.uk:
“Going out is one of the most exciting parts of the student experience for many people, and Bristol is a city with some of the best student club nights around…”
Having said that, some university press offices occasionally muddy the water by leveraging nightlife and quality-of-student-life surveys for PR, like this from the University of Liverpool:
“The University of Liverpool won the ‘City Life’ category at last night’s 2018 Whatuni Student Choice Awards, an annual celebration of student satisfaction in higher education… Now in their fifth year, the awards provide prospective students with an unbiased, student-led alternative to traditional university ranking systems.”
Refining the language of student experience
Another survey uses a more precise form of the phrase to remove ambiguity. The Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES) is run by a think tank, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the charity Advance HE.
The survey’s focus is very clearly on those obvious aspects of the student experience which are within universities’ direct control, such as teaching quality, tuition fees and value for money.
In one section, however, it refers to the “wider student experience” as a reason some students might consider leaving the HE institutions at which they are enrolled.
That feels like a useful distinction to me, and one which could help keep under control the scope of projects designed to improve student experience.
When I asked my colleague Emma Layton, one of Sparck’s HE experts, about this, she pointed out that there are many aspects of student outcomes that sit in the fuzzier ground between teaching (direct control) and lifestyle (out of control):
“There are links between things like physical health, mental health, extra-curricular activity, work experience, and the practical life opportunities generated as a result of study. HE institutions have a wealth of data they could use to unpick those links, improve their positions in rankings, and drive outcomes for their students.”
She also suggested that both the institutional definition and the student one fail to capture what really matters:
“What's most important, I think, is the outcomes of actually going to university. For example, how does it increase student confidence, digital literacy or employability? These are almost the unconscious unknowns for students – things that universities will have research or data on but perhaps aren't measuring, and that students won't necessarily be thinking about at all. We should be asking ‘What's the likelihood this degree will get them a job?’ or ‘What additional skills should they be building to make them stand-out candidates?’”
Student experience in the round
I’ve been working with service designers for long enough now to know that when addressing user experience we need to look at the whole journey – not just the bit that’s under our control, direct or otherwise.
So, while we might want to use more precise language, we can’t ignore those aspects of student life that are important to students, even if they’re less important to HE institutions.
Or those less immediate, less direct outcomes Emma identified above. She says:
“The way HE institutions are organised can be telling of how much of a service design mindset they're applying to student experience. Many universities will have employability and accommodation teams, or student services, to look at those wider part of a student's university lifecycle. But if there's nothing to define how those departments work together or connect to the overall experience, or to break down the siloes around data, tooling and research, then they're going to fall short of achieving full impact.”
We’re already working with several HE institutions across the UK, both on client projects and as part of our commitment to improving the quality of design education.
If you’d like to talk about how we might support your institution, Emma is a good person to speak to in the first instance. You can contact her through this website or find her on LinkedIn where she’ll be happy to connect.
