How long will we play catch-up post-Covid?
The pandemic’s long-term effects on individuals and society are still not fully understood. Still, our student accommodation experts Katy Lemmon at The University of Liverpool and Lee Rawlinson from Homes for Students say they are seeing the huge potential of a savvy post-Covid generation despite the challenges.
We are all aware of how the lingering aftershock of the pandemic combined with the cost of living crisis has had a devastating effect on young people with a string of reports still coming thick and fast confirming the effects on education, mental wellbeing, financial security and confidence.
The COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) study, the largest study of its kind into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life chances of young people, has highlighted generation-defining challenges. In November 2022, it was reported that more than half of 16 to 17-year-olds were experiencing mental health issues.
Meanwhile, as the pressures of the cost of living crisis bite harder, polling by the Sutton Trust for the BBC in March 2023 explored the impact on student lives of taking on paid work to make ends meet and found about half (49%) of undergraduate students had missed classes within the academic year to do paid work.
In January 2023, the Guardian published an analysis of how the pandemic is still affecting student lives and their plans for the future, 18 months on (then) from the end of the third national lockdown. The series following eight members of Gen Z also highlighted an emerging new mentality.
Resilience and Priorities
That changing mindset underpinned by resilience is something Katy Lemmon, Accommodation Manager at The University of Liverpool says she and colleagues at other universities have all picked up on.
“This is the first year (2023) where we’ve had no impact from COVID since the pandemic and we went into it believing that our new students who were 15, 16, and 17 through lockdown had missed a key developmental stage in terms of socialising and becoming young adults. We thought they were going to want to let their hair down. But they’ve proved us wrong. What we’ve seen is they seem to have real resilience – a cohort of students who just want to get on with it.”
– Katy Lemmon
A More Savvy and Environmentally Aware Generation
Katy says there is strong evidence that the current crop of students have a clearer idea of their priorities post-pandemic.
“In terms of how students perceive themselves, the National Student Housing Survey gives them a chance to rate themselves on different areas of importance to them, and aspects like sustainability score highly.”
“They perceive themselves to be much more environmentally aware and more technologically advanced than any other generation before them. The groups of students that have lived with us over the last couple of years have been the most politically aware students that we’ve ever seen, which is a great positive for us as we want students to be thinking about the country and the future. I would say they see themselves as a savvy bunch. And I think they’re correct in that assumption, to be honest.”
– Katy Lemmon
Informed Choices and Deliberate Journeys
Lee Rawlinson, Director of Homes for Students agrees and emphasises the increased number of students who are 19 years of age coming into higher education for the first time who have taken time out and are making informed choices.
“Normally it’s 17 to 18-year-olds who are coming in, but the number of students now, essentially rebooting or restarting their experience at 19 because they’ve come through COVID and the pandemic has increased. They have experienced automated grading, and they have been locked in their rooms. They’ve seen all the stuff in the press. So they are wanting value for money in the sense of experience, and almost restart that experience by deliberately delaying their journey.”
– Lee Rawlinson
Competing for Student Attention in a Digital Age
In today’s digital age, competing for the attention of students has become an ongoing challenge and has been evolving over the last decade. The emergence of social media channels continually pushes universities and accommodation providers to foster a sense of togetherness among students. Lee Rawlinson highlights this point:
“There is evidence to suggest competing for the attention of students now is also an emerging battleground and has been for the last 10 years. Social media channels like Instagram and TikTok or whatever the platform of the day is will constantly challenge universities and accommodation providers to bring that sense of togetherness and how to build a sense of community.”
To address these challenges, Lee mentions using resident apps, which help students connect and offer them a holistic experience while at university.
“We’ve developed our dedicated resident app in-house as we recognised students were struggling to build friendship groups. This has helped us to plan our engagement and events programmes around what students wanted before they arrived based on their interests to tailor these to offer a more personalised experience. So if students want more events around K-pop, karaoke or the Afro-Caribbean society, it’d be cool if we knew that information beforehand as this is often a blindspot for res life teams until students arrive each year. And by students being able to review events, we can understand those that had a better chance of success, rather than a pizza party, which sometimes is to be the default norm for the sector.”
– Lee Rawlinson
While Homes for Students has made strides in this area, Kinetic’s student experience app, KxEngage, can further enhance these efforts. KxEngage is designed to keep students connected and informed about activities, create vibrant student communities, and communicate effortlessly, facilitating a seamless university experience. With well-rounded features, KxEngage empowers students to make the most of their time at university.
Flexibility and Personalisation: Lessons from the Pandemic
Being agile and working alongside students during the pandemic was vital and at The University of Liverpool, this was recognised with a National Student Housing award for the best university halls in 2021 based on feedback from students who were living there during lockdown.
Katy Lemmon says that lessons learned during the pandemic highlighted the value of flexibility and a personalised approach.
“We were proactive with our approach to the pandemic as one of the first universities to announce a flexible way to study, especially with our accommodation services. We made sure students could be released from accommodation contracts and provided rent rebates. We kept an open dialogue with students and quite literally worked on a student-by-student basis through that period, to support whatever their requirements were.”
– Katy Lemmon
Shifting Mindsets and Evolving Demands
Fast forward to the current cohort and Katy says that there is a shift in student mindset and the university is responding.
“We are seeing students demanding more from us and rightfully so. I think we’ve been lucky as a university as we have driven forward with that flexible approach and putting students at the forefront of our decision-making and strategic direction. Ultimately, as students continue to become more brand aware, they’ll understand the wider reach and impact of higher education providers and they will vote with their feet.”
– Katy Lemmon
The Era of Empowered Student Consumers
Lee Rawlinson believes the evolution of students as empowered consumers is here to stay.
“Today you can have a takeaway meal delivered in three clicks. In one click you can have something from Amazon. So, these are massive changes in consumer behaviour. The sector always has to be horizon scanning, preparing itself for change. Keeping pace with the demands of an on-demand, always-on instant gratification generation that we have with our current students is leading the sector down a particular route. So, we’ve got to be open and we’ve got to be ready to be able to facilitate the needs of students and recognise that they will continually be evolving.”
– Lee Rawlinson
This evidence on the ground is supported further by the latest UCAS Student Lifestyle Report which says that the pandemic has built a ‘new strength in a generation already characterised by resilience, mental health awareness and steadfast moral compass’. Traits that the report says are ‘directly influencing spending, brand loyalty, technology and social media use and travel’.
Regardless of the trend towards more savvy, consumer empowerment once students have arrived in the sector, the COSMO study shows that the shadow of Covid is continuing to highlight inequalities in access to higher education with the route for those most disadvantaged by the pandemic being less about the path they choose and more about the options chosen for them. The Covid generation cohort seems less positive about higher education with disadvantaged young people less likely to be applying and less confident about getting in. The challenge for HE providers say both the COSMO panel and the Office for Students, remains to address both the issues of changing life plans and attainment to prevent widening inequalities in the years to come.
