The UNITE Student Experience Report

The Student Experience Report 2006 is the most comprehensive in-depth study of the attitudes, concerns and aspirations of today's full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students in the UK.

The key findings of the survey include:

• Today's students are happy and more optimistic than ever. They overwhelmingly believe going to university is a worthwhile experience and the money they are spending on their education to be a good investment for the future.
• The majority of students decide to go to university to gain qualifications and to improve my chances of getting a good or better job. While they are generally confident university will deliver on this latter objective — most agree university has set me in good stead for my working life and are optimistic about getting a job when I finish my course, there is room for improvement. Many students would like to see their university offer sector placements and more course related career advice
• The overall and academic reputations remain the most important factors in the choice of university. Facilities and social factors, while important, play less of a part.
• Previous waves of the survey have shown that the course itself is the major factor in the choice of university, and the findings from this wave suggest universities could improve the information they provide. The main cause of students dropping out, or considering dropping out, is that the course is not as expected or what the students wanted to do.
• Students' opinions and impressions about their university are becoming increasingly more favourable, the proportion now rating their university as "very favourable" is up by 14 percentage points since wave 1, however this is still less than half of all students, and falls to a third of those attending new universities Similarly, while a higher proportion of students now rate the standard of teaching and the amount of contact time they have with their tutors and lecturers as "very good" than in previous waves of the survey, these are still relatively low at 39% and 25% respectively.
• Rather than being in an ivory tower, three-quarters of students believe universities make a vital contribution to the UK economy. The majority believe universities fulfill a number of important roles in society, such as training the workforce of the future, researching and generating new innovations and ideas and advancing medicine and technology.
• In general, students buy in to the idea of active citizenship and realise the importance of behaving responsibly. However, while believing they bring many benefits to their community, many do admit that the student body can cause problems by being noisy, drunk and behaving anti-socially.
• Students have mixed feeling about the affects of globalisation, while the majority agree the globalisation of brands has led to the exploitation of third world countries, they also agree it's good that you can get the same brands wherever you are in the world.
• A similar proportion of students have a paid job during term time as in previous waves of the study (41%) and the majority work in low skilled jobs such as retail, bar work and catering. An increasing proportion of students in paid employment say they are working to provide money for basic essentials. Despite this, many enjoy their job and believe that it brings a number of benefits, such as developing time management skills, gaining extra skills and believe it will look good on their CV.
• While around four in ten students report they are keeping up with their bills and credit commitments without any difficulties, over half are experiencing some degree of difficulty, one in twenty (6%) are either seriously falling behind with their some of their bills and financial commitments or have real financial problems. Most students would turn to their family for help if they got into financial difficulties.
• Two-thirds of students are currently in debt. However, the level of student debt would seem to have stabilised after a large increase in the last wave. On average students currently owe £5,267 as a direct result of going to university and expect this to rise to £9,692 by the time they complete their studies. For the majority, this debt takes the form of a student loan, however a third of students have an overdraft and one in eight owe money on a credit card. The proportion of students who worry about their debts is decreasing, however, over a quarter of students still agree I am are seriously worried the debts I am going to incur as a result of going to university.

Technical details

This is the sixth wave of UNITE's Student Experience Report. Ipsos conducted 1,025 face-to-face interviews with full-time undergraduate and post-graduate students between 24 October and 25 November 2005. 20 Universities were selected from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The selection of universities was representative of region and type of university (old and new). The sample profile of students has been consistent across all six waves of the study and fieldwork is conducted at the same time each year.