Students once gave more weight to a higher-education institution's name or classroom content, the grandeur of its grounds or its social life, but today’s prospective and current attendees increasingly consider everything when they decide where to study. Dubbed "student experience," the combination of art and science mirrors customer and employee experience, which also continue garnering huge investments of money and time as organizations seek ways to attract and retain the best clients and staff.
In fact, "student experience" is increasingly on the minds of university leaders, according to multiple reports. Using Scopus (the citation index database from Elsevier), found 59 articles on student satisfaction in or before 2000, or 4.9% of all published, according to a team led by Dasan University College's Seongyoun Hong, Taejung Park and Jaewon Choi. During 2001 to 2010, that pool grew to 22.8% (276 articles), then soared to 72.3% (876 articles) between 2011 and 2017, according to the April 2020 report.
Universities must adapt in the face of so many changes in the world, in education, the workforce and the prospective student-bodies, according to Gary Guadagnolo, director of the research division at EAB, which provides research and analysis, plus software and services to education clients. "Universities have fallen into a game of Whack-a-Mole, chasing after improved performance in a never-ending deluge of surveys," he wrote in a company blog.
Pandemic Predicament
While many higher-ed institutions began heavily focusing on student experience several years ago, the unwelcome arrival of Covid-19 and academia's adoption for most – if not all – classes, hastened this investment.
Without a mandate to stay away from dorms, students can live anywhere and attend any university. Attractions such as sororities and fraternities, off- and on-campus activities and groups, proximity to cultural draws such as museums or theaters, and sprawling grounds hold little allure when they're out-of-bounds.
"Now that universities have made the transition to online education, it's more important than ever for them to maintain a welcoming online experience where students are satisfied with how much and the quality of what they're learning. With this shift to e-learning, it's much more convenient than it was before for a dissatisfied student to apply to and then attend another university because they can continue living where they are," Joshua Loufek, a senior studying Computer Science at the University of Central Florida (UCF), told Fierce Education.
"This means students unhappy with their current education can easily switch to the university most willing to cater to their needs and their student experience," he said.
That is good news for students and an opportunity – or challenge – for higher-education administrators, especially given some students' unrealistic expectations of college life and their relationships with other organizations.
Taking Center Stage
By and large, Gen Z and Millennial students are accustomed to being at the center of interactions and want the same relationship with their college or university. Typically individualistic and accustomed to personalization, they're used to doing things themselves without parental assistance and prefer community engagement opportunities with "a lasting impact on an underlying societal problem over short-term volunteer experiences that only address the symptoms or effects of an underlying issue," according to Rich Robbins, Associate Dean at the College of Arts and Sciences at Bucknell University.
These long-range community outreach initiatives forge part of the student experience, one administration officials should not overlook, Robbins wrote in a blog.
This customization heavily relies on technology and apps: In fact, these generations, particularly Gen Z, prefer small, frequent doses of video-intensive communications, multiple studies found. "Students want universities to improve their use of technologies as part of the student experience, including the ability to translate learnings, engage with others and interact with their teachers," said Ernst & Young Global's "The University of the Future" report, conducted for the Australian government.
Officials also cater to older learners, both ongoing and those new to higher education. This could mean including written and video versions of materials and not solely relying on one channel of communication – TikTok, for example – despite its popularity with one generation.
From open door policies and listening to high-tech video-based apps and integrated databases that ensure educators reach all students via their preferred lines of communication, students' expectations may be high but higher-education professionals' allies and solutions are as diverse as the people they
Students' expectations of their university experience may be high, but the array of allies, services and solutions available to higher-education professionals is vast, diverse and deep. With planning, imagination and collaboration, universities can ensure each student experience is as individual as the person attending their institution and as rich as the syllabus, campus and history.