Reflections from “Generation Alpha: Are You Ready?” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 | Part One of Two
By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic
Generation Alpha arrives at university in 2028. That is two years away. And if the conversation at CUBO Residence Life 2026 was anything to go by, the sector is only just beginning to reckon with what that means.
Caroline Cockell, Director of Marketing at Student Roost, presented research drawn from a survey of 1,000 eleven to fifteen-year-olds and their parents, conducted to understand how this cohort is thinking about education, technology, and their futures. The findings challenged a number of assumptions the room had walked in with, and the discussion that followed was one of the most energetic of the two days.
This is the first of two articles drawing on that session. This one is about who Gen Alpha actually are. The second looks at how to design for them.
The generation we think we understand
Every generation gets a headline. For Gen Alpha, it is this: they are the first fully AI-native cohort. Born between 2010 and 2024, they have grown up with touchscreens, smart speakers, algorithmic content feeds, and AI assistants as background infrastructure. They have never known a world without these things.
And that framing is not wrong, exactly. 92% of the eleven to fifteen-year-olds surveyed use a touchscreen daily. 80% own a smartphone. 98% have access to some kind of smart device at home. They expect technology to be invisible and frictionless, and when it is not, they experience it as a system failure rather than a minor inconvenience.
But Caroline’s central argument was that being AI native does not mean being AI obsessed, and the data made that case clearly.
When students were asked what they cannot live without, 61% said their smartphone. Smart speakers barely registered. Alexa and Google Home, the devices most associated with ambient AI in the home, came in low on both usage and importance. And when students were asked what they actually spend their time doing, the list was not what most people in the room expected.
Watching YouTube came first. Watching TV came second. Listening to music third. Spending time with friends in person fourth. And sixth on the list was casual outdoor play.
Outdoor play. In a survey of eleven to fifteen-year-olds in 2025. Netflix and physical books also appeared in the top ten things they say they cannot live without.
Caroline’s reflection on this was thoughtful. This cohort lived through COVID at a formative age. The older ones were ten or eleven when lockdowns began. Being outside when you could only go out once a day may have instilled a different relationship with outdoor space than the generation before them had. And human connection, after years of enforced separation, remains something they actively seek out rather than take for granted.
The pressure underneath the phone
The research asked students and their parents about aspirations, and the gap between the two groups was telling.
44% of parents said they were almost certain their child would go to university. Only 36% of the young people themselves said they thought they would. 52% of parents said they believed university was no longer worth the cost.
But here is what the data also showed: only 11% of the young people surveyed felt university would not be worth the expense. And the statement that received the highest level of agreement across the entire education section was this: if I did go to university, I would be really proud of myself.
University is no longer the default. But it still carries real meaning for the students who choose it.
What sits underneath all of this is pressure, and it came up repeatedly in the room discussion. The top aspiration students expressed for their own lives was simply to be happy. Not to be successful or wealthy or famous. Happy. The second and third most common responses were about feeling pressure: that social media changes how people think and feel, and that there is too much pressure on young people to perform.
The discussion around what is driving that pressure was honest and wide-ranging. Climate change came up. The property ladder. Political instability. The sense that making a mistake is now permanent because everything is recorded and shareable. One attendee put it well: when we were growing up, if you had a difficult time at school, you left and went home, and you were away from it until the next day. For this generation, whoever they are having that conflict with has constant, always-on access to them.
I shared a perspective from my own experience having studied in both India and the UK. In India, the pressure to get a degree is not primarily about the university experience or personal growth. It is a baseline filter. If you do not have a degree, many employers simply will not consider you, regardless of your skills. With a population as large as India’s, a degree is the minimum requirement to be taken seriously for most roles. So the cultural weight of the decision is different. Here in the UK, where alternative routes are growing and the cost of a degree is increasingly scrutinised, that pressure has a different shape. But it is still pressure. Just pointed in different directions.
Caroline made a point that I thought was particularly worth holding onto. Around 40% of UCAS applicants this year are considering commuting to university, choosing institutions based on whether they could commute if accommodation costs became unmanageable. Parents are saying move away and get the full experience. Students are saying I cannot afford to. That tension is already here, and Gen Alpha will bring it with them.
What 35% of parents are most worried about
The research asked parents what they were most concerned about for their children, and 35% said their child’s mental health and emotional wellbeing. That was the top answer, above academic performance, above employment prospects, above financial security.
Caroline spoke about a specific initiative developed at Student Roost called Behind Every Door, built on the premise that for every student who comes to a front desk to ask for help, there are many more behind their bedroom doors who are struggling and not saying so. The initiative places a sticker behind every bedroom door with a QR code linking directly to Chasing the Stigma’s Hub of Hope app, which currently holds around 15,000 resources including university welfare teams and support services. 14 PBSA providers have now adopted the stickers.
It is a small thing. It takes seconds to encounter and seconds to use. But it is available at the moment when a student is most alone, which is often the moment they most need it.
The point Caroline was making is that signposting is not a passive act. Done well, it meets students where they are, in their rooms, at the moment the need is real.
What we are actually dealing with in two years
Gen Alpha are not an alien species. They are young people navigating the same fundamental human needs for belonging, identity, and purpose that every generation before them has navigated. The technology has changed the landscape but not the core.
What is different is the pressure. The always-on comparison. The sense that your mistakes are permanent. The weight of a world that feels genuinely harder to navigate than it did for previous generations, because in many ways it is. Climate anxiety is real. The housing market is genuinely inaccessible for most young people. The job market is more competitive. And the social media environment means that none of this is ever entirely out of sight.
The fifteen-year-old in the film Caroline showed at the end of her session said it simply and clearly: if I do move away for uni, I want to go somewhere that feels like mine. Somewhere I can chill. But also not be completely alone.
That is not a Gen Alpha aspiration. It is a human one. The challenge for institutions is meeting it in a world that has made isolation far easier to choose than it has ever been before.
The second article from this session looks at how to design spaces, programmes and environments that meet Gen Alpha where they are. Read it here.
The full research from this session was presented by Caroline Cockell, Director of Marketing at Student Roost.
Kinetic was Headline Sponsor of the CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026. This is part of an ongoing series of articles reflecting on sessions from the event.
Read more Kinetic Voices here.
