Welcome to back to university, and the new academic year of 2025-26. To the professional service and academic colleagues reading this, you will likely be half-way through the first semester or term with teaching well underway and students submitting their first assessments. The first semester at every university is always by far the busiest, as teams return to campus and come together to initiate new ideas to support student engagement. Being at the coalface of universities, whether teaching or supporting learning, makes this time of year the most intense. It is often the opportunity to reset expectations of our targets in higher education – both at a local and national level – whether relating to research output, teaching evaluations or supporting student outcomes.
It is during this fast-paced semester time that I return to writing blogs for Simac, following a series last year asking and tackling some of the big questions in our sector relating to the changing (and challenging) nature of student engagement in the modern university. Across this series, and alongside other pressing topics, I will continue to share my thoughts on the current debates facing our colleagues, relating topics such as “how do we engage students in large class sizes,” “how artificial intelligence may be changing students’ relationship with knowledge,” and “how to manage student behaviour in class.” First, however, it is important to set the scene and context of the current UK student, by discussing and challenging our expectations – perhaps our stereotyping - of our students, so we may be empathetic towards who they are and how can we support their engagement.
The Stereotypical Student
It will not be unfamiliar to hear amongst the general public and media sources an application of what seems a rather outdated stereotype of university students. These often describe student behaviours, personality traits and often political inclinations. Although perhaps not to the same degree, this same caricature student also pops up in many conversations within higher education institutions, where references to ‘students’ are made in whole-scale homogenising sweeps, which assume who students are and, therefore, how they expected to engage. This is often where the problem begins because stereotyping builds assumptions and expectations, and these assumptions and expectations feed into practice and design, creating barriers and unintentional bias, which can discriminate against those who do not fit the frame of this caricature lens. While having a broad brush picture of who students are and what they might like to do (and eat!) can be helpful when working at scale, particularly if you are governing a large university, there are risks to such behaviour that need to be more fully considered too.
The homogenous group of ‘students’.
The Higher Education (HE) system in the United Kingdom (UK) supported 1,318,685 new students in 2024-25 (HESA, 2025), studying across wide a variety of pathways from Level 4 and 5 qualifications in a College HE setting, right up to Level 8 doctorates (NB: Level 8 = Level 12 in the Scottish HE system. These students are part-time, full-time, working, caring, parents, commuters, living in halls, part of sport, all night gamers, early morning runners, satisfied and dissatisfied – students are as individual as any other group or generation in society. However, as soon as university students are spoken about at scale and referred to flippantly in conversation, stereotypes feature, those branded onto students from a not-so-distant past; that they are all in halls, drinking alcohol, partying, and eating beans on toast or pizza for every meal. These are perhaps the stereotypes of a student of prior decades (likely 2000’s, 2010’s or before). This stereotype is most certainly now a minority of students which are no longer representative on the current student experience (though, I confess I cannot be absolutely sure on the food sources). This is further complicated when talking about study mode, which for now is no longer set semester dates nationally, but can be at all dates/months across the year, for varying periods of time, and a mixture of on-site, blended, or fully online opportunities. Making assumptions, creating stereotypes and expectations, leads to barriers – we must always remain alert to this caricature image that is iterated and reiterated to combat this perception and consider the diversity of students and experiences so that our engagement opportunities reflect this.
Meeting the needs of our current students
I highlighted this issue in a blog last year, and do so often in my talks on engaging Generation Z students. I’m well aware of the great irony here to emphasise above that we should never stereotype the student group and then continue to run discussions about “how do we engage Generation Z learners”. However, I do so in the spirit of attempting to move the conversation forward from this caricatured student of the first two decades of the new millennium and start to help colleagues understand that the students of today are far more diverse than those that have come before them both inside and outside of this particular generation ‘Z’ and as they are not all Generation Z students. I do so to call attention to the urgent need for enhancement in such areas as learning and teaching and student engagement, which requires us to hold space for such discussions. In order to open the floor for these topics, we must always caveat any presumptions with “this is a broad statement that will not relate to all students” to remind ourselves that we are not speaking for all students in higher education, but a sub-set, and be aware of what students we might be excluding from conversation in making those broad statements. As we saw during the pandemic, the government policies on university return dates largely aligned with traditional full-time undergraduate elite university dates, and the policies were otherwise pretty inapplicable to the wider (and perhaps the majority) of the sector. I wonder whether questions were raised during these decision-making conversations about what students were being excluded in applying stereotypical expectations.
Away with ill-fitting stereotypes
So, why do I open up this series with this question of stereotyping? I do so because I think there is a desperate need to debunk the ill-fitting, inaccurate (for the masses) old stereotypes which no longer reflect our student body. Stereotypes that relate to assumptions around alcohol consumption in particular need drastic revision, as many as 49% of young people opting for no or low alcoholic drinks – for a range of reasons - and the nighttime industry has seen a huge decline from 1700 nightclubs in 2013 compared to only 787 in 2024 (Clarke, 2025; Pruden-Medus, 2025). These outdated assumptions also relate to students having ample free time, which again research has shown is no longer the case as most are working long hours alongside their studies (Wright, Lowe, Wilding, 2024). Finally, the expectation that students are largely living on campus-based universities is also outdated, with many universities seeing annual increase in the number of commuting students (Blackbullion, 2024). Alongside traditional campus-based study, new and current providers are opening more blended and online study options, let alone the c.46,800 Degree Apprenticeships (House of Commons, 2024) or the c.110,000 students in College Based Higher Education in a Further Education setting (Association of Colleges, 2025). Perspectives, perceptions, expectations and assumptions need to shift.
Looking ahead
The “stereotypical student” is long gone, replaced by a diverse and dynamic group balancing study, work, and life in ways that challenge our old assumptions. Recognising this is the first step toward genuine engagement. As we look ahead to the rest of the academic year and this blog series, my aim is to continue unpacking how we can meaningfully engage with the diverse student body of 2025 and beyond. In the next posts, I will explore some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities for higher education practitioners - from engaging large and complex cohorts, to navigating the role of artificial intelligence in learning, to managing behaviour and belonging in our classrooms. Together, these discussions will help us reimagine what authentic student engagement looks like in today’s ever-evolving higher education landscape.
Tom Lowe has researched and innovated in student engagement across diverse settings for over ten years, in areas such as student voice, retention, employability and student-staff partnership. Tom works at the University of Westminster as Assistant Head of School (Student Experience) in Finance and Accounting where he leads on student experience, outcomes and belonging. Tom is also the Chair of RAISE, a network for all stakeholders in higher education for researching, innovating and sharing best practice in student engagement. Prior to Westminster, Tom was a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth and previously held leadership positions for engagement and employability at the University of Winchester. Tom has published two books on student engagement with Routledge; ‘A Handbook for Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theory into Practice’ in 2020 and ‘Advancing Student Engagement in Higher Education: Reflection, Critique and Challenge’ in 2023, and has supported over 40 institutions in consultancy and advisory roles internationally
References
Association of Colleges, 2025. Higher Education. Available at: https://www.aoc.co.uk/policy/education-policy/higher-education
Clarke, J. 2025. Nearly half of Gen Z are choosing ‘no or low alcohol drinks’ in cultural reset. Published 21st October 2025. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/low-no-alcohol-drinks-young-adults-gen-z-b2849171.html
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), 2025. Higher Education Student Statistics: UK 2023/24 released. Available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/20-03-2025/he-student-statistics-2324-released
House of Commons, 2024. Degree apprenticeships Research Briefing. Published 8th May,2024. Available at: http://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8741/
Pruden-Medus, R., 2025. From 42s to 5ks: The decline of student nightlife. Published 5th June 2025. The Mancunion. Available at: https://mancunion.com/2025/06/05/from-42s-to-5ks-the-decline-of-student-nightlife/#:~:text=Unfortunately%20the%20stats%20support%20this,no%20clubs%20left%20by%202030.
Wright, A., Lowe, M., Wilding, M., 2024. Student part-time work is on the rise. Here’s what universities can do next. Wonkhe. Published 30th January 2024. Available at: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/our-full-time-students-are-almost-full-time-workers-too/
