This blog has been written by Emily Dixon, Senior Research and Content Officer at London Higher, based on data from IDP Connect.
If there is one thing universities always need more of, it is honest and accurate real-time reflections of how their students are feeling. This is true most of all in London, where a large city with long commute times and a highly diverse student population can lead to varying student experiences. An eighteen-year-old full time Engineering student living in university halls will inevitably see a different side to London to a part-time mature nursing student with a family who is living at home. This is why, in the UK’s largest student city, gathering student perspectives is essential. London’s higher education institutions would all benefit from encouraging their students to respond to the WUSCAs call for responses through this link.
The Whatuni Student Choice Awards (WUSCAs) offer a current view into the student experience and allow universities to celebrate where they do well. The data they generate can be used as a precursor to NSS surveys. In 2024, almost 40,000 students across 267 higher education institutions (HEIs)submitted reviews. These were 71% undergraduate and 29% postgraduate, and 76% domestic and 24% international. We can learn a lot from this data both nationally and at a regional level about who the students are at various institutions and how they are feeling. From this year’s data we see that London’s student respondents study a different balance of subjects than their peers in the rest of the country. The top three subject areas for both London and the wider UK included health/medicine and business/management/marketing, but London students were more likely to study computing and mathematical science and students in the UK overall were more likely to study social studies and media. Of course, the more students complete the survey, the more accurate the picture will be of the student experience.
We know well in the capital that studying in London is not like studying anywhere else. Our Study London campaign works to understand and highlight the reasons London is different from any other student city and why prospective students might want to consider whether this unique city would work for them. So we are understandably invested in considering every aspect of how our students view their experience studying here.
Some of this year’s data invites further investigation. Student responses this year ranked London mid-field for career prospects – an interesting finding when we know separately that students come to London from all over the world because of their belief that London offers unmatched employability, leading to a good start to many careers. We can also see that Greater London has had one of the greatest increases in student perception of career prospects over the last two years. So, what have London universities changed since 2022 that is improving student perceptions of their career prospects? What more can they do? What is it that’s working?
Other metrics also paint a complex picture of the city. Under student perception of the cost of living, London (the UK’s most expensive city) falls at the more negative end of the spectrum but is simultaneously the most improved region in the last two years. London students report that they have excellent public transport but poor student life.
Although there are interesting nuggets in the data, so far the WUSCAs data picture for London is, unfortunately, imperfect. Students submitting their thoughts are concentrated in London’s large, multi-faculty post-1992 universities. These are large institutions and the home of a great many of the capital’s students, but data gathered primarily from one type of institution doesn’t tell the full story.
At London Higher, we know well that the diversity of the capital’s higher education institutions is one of the city’s greatest strengths, but it also means high quality data is required to make estimations about how the capital’s student body is feeling. London’s old and new institutions, large and small institutions, specialist and non-specialist institutions will all tell different stories, in the city with the greatest diversity of institution types in the country.
Higher education institutions have the power to make this data better by incentivizing their students to contribute to WUSCAs and feed into the temperature check on how students are doing. To get started with the review collection, you can use their brand-new mini playbook (link here). The playbook includes everything you need to collect student reviews, such as flyers, banners, posters, social media assets, email templates, and even some review collection best practices. If you have any questions, please reach out to the WUSCA Project manager, Qasim Badri at wusca.support@idp.com.
