Introduction
HEPI recently published their Student Academic Experience Survey 2025. This survey collects, collates and reports on the findings of circa 48,000 students about all aspects of their student experience in the last year. From tuition quality through to finances, value for money through to wellbeing, the survey is wide-ranging.
This survey has been taken eighteen times before, making this the nineteenth iteration. You can access the full report here – I won’t type it all out on this blog!
In summary, and with particular reference to the HIgher-ED service, an unexpected change has been in the number of students working in paid employment in term time. In 2025, 35% of students were doing paid work in term time but this has risen to 68% this year. This is almost a doubling of the number.
At the same time, the overall number of summative and formative assessments has increased from an average of 6.7 per semester to 9.9. We can infer that the average student has quite a lot to juggle. What is decreasing appears to be the amount of time being set aside for independent study, however whether this is due to more efficient use of automation and technology or simply lack of time, I am not clear.
Reflection
How to interpret these findings from the Student Academic Experience Survey? Veering away from repeating from the publication, there is an argument that this is a positive finding. In the workplace, it is rare to have only one thing to focus on at a time. It is more common to have competing pressures needing the skill of prioritisation. So arguably, practising the behaviours needed in the full-time workplace is a positive from a future employability perspective.
However, an another argument is that an undergraduate degree is not like a job, as the student has paid several thousands of pounds for the learning experience, and so needs the time and space to get the most out of the expertise, resources and wisdom that they have purchased.
A further thought is that the university experience is about more than studying. It cannot be much fun to be in the library all day and paid employment all evening. Time is a finite resource. As this study is a student experience survey, I wonder how much this skews students’ perception of value for money? The teaching could be world-class but if the overall experience is not enjoyable, this could affect the perception of overall quality.
Which links to the question in the report about whether a student would do the same degree again. This is surely the answer to which every HE institution wants the answer to be yes! But they can only control so much..
On balance, there are 24 hours in a day and I think the principle of 8 hours’ sleep, 8 hours’ work and 8 hours doing what you choose is a good one. This puts the individual as an empowered student making their own choices according to their own situation, which is a good mindset for success both on the degree course and the world of work when it comes.
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