Event report – Student Retention and Success Practitioner Online Meeting
Linking London held the first Student Retention and Success Practitioner Online Meeting of the academic year on the 19th October 2023.
After a warm welcome from Andrew Jones, Director at Linking London, the meeting began hearing from Tom Allingham, Communications Director at Save the Student who gave the group an overview of the National Student Money Survey 2023 that Save the Student published in September including its key findings, how student spending has increased, how students get money and how this impacts students’ lifestyle.
We then heard from Ben Margolis, Senior Democracy and Insights Coordinator at the Greenwich Students’ Union who provided an overview of a cost-of-living crisis survey done with University of Greenwich students and the report published including the key statistics, the questions asked and the key findings which were around income and living costs, hidden costs and employment and employability. Ben lastly went through what they did with the results and the recommendations that were implemented following this.
Following this we heard from Josh Freeman, Policy Manager at HEPI who presented to the group giving an overview of the HEPI report ‘How to Beat a Cost-of-Learning Crisis: Universities’ support for students’ including how they undertook this research, key statistics, ways in which universities are supporting students and lastly the recommendations for universities, students’ unions and government.
After a short comfort break, we heard from Raffaella Freeman and Jess Evans, Senior Research Officer from the Office for National Statistics who presented to the group on the ONS’ research on the Student Cost of Living giving some background to the research, the results found and the political and media interest.
This was followed by a group discussion on how educational institutions can respond effectively to the cost of living crisis, discussion included the need for localised support but also the need for wider reaching support that is accessible to everyone and collaboration of educational institutions to lobby the government to address these issues more effectively.
Lastly the meeting closed where partners were able to discuss about possible topics for future meetings and what issues would be beneficial for institutions to discuss further on.
The next Student Retention and Success meeting will be in the Spring term, 29th February 2024, 2-4pm.
RECORDING, SLIDES AND MEETING NOTE
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