Are commuting students considered when designing the undergraduate ‘university experience’?

This is the second part of HEPI’s themed week of blogs all about commuter students. You can read the first blog in the series here.

This blog was kindly authored by Aarohi Shah, undergraduate student at University College London and current HEPI Intern.

This is not an unusual story. As journalist Liz Lightfoot observed in the Guardian over eight years ago, the higher education system in the UK is largely designed around the residential experience. With such a perception in place, commuting students (those who travel to university from their permanent residence) are frequently disadvantaged in both their academics and their involvement with wider university life. Additionally, the numbers suggest this group is far from small. In 2025, 31 per cent of UK undergraduates indicated commuting to attend university. And while the impacts of commuting are impacted by factors such as commute time, they still have severe consequences.

Impact on academics

Higher education curriculum and processes, from assessments to extra-curricular activities, to timetabling and restricted opening and closing times of facilities such as cafes, have been historically designed within many institutions without consideration of the need to travel to access higher education. While improvements have been made, the result is still a structural mismatch between how universities organise learning and how a large share of their students actually experience it.

One of the most common manifestations of this is what might be called the ‘sparse timetable’ problem, where limited in-person lectures and tutorials are scattered across large empty blocks of the day. One University College London (UCL) student described having to travel forty-five minutes each way for a single one-hour seminar. After a point, the travel time required meant that she stopped attending and, without access to seminar recordings, her retention of the material suffered. She had not disengaged from her education, the system had simply made engagement unreasonable for her. Research including five hundred and fifty Kingston University undergraduates also illustrated a strong negative correlation, through a survey, between travel time and the choice ‘the timetable works efficiently for me’.

A focus group conducted by the University of Bristol Student Union found that some students at the institution reported having to book hotels to attend early morning lectures, and many felt that more condensed timetables would help justify travel time and costs. Condensed timetables also aid students who are looking for part-time work by allowing more flexibility, as pointed out by the HEPI’s Student Working Lives report. Timely communication about timetables and cancellations were viewed as essential to help commuters plan travel and secure cheaper transport tickets in advance.

Travel reliability compounds these difficulties. The Office of Rail and Road found that 13.6% of trains in London have notable delays, while bus speeds in London have fallen below 9 miles per hour – is the lowest ever recorded.  And this is just for London, a city with one of the best public transport systems in the UK. The town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire suffers from some of the worst public transport delays, with 24% of trains arriving over five minutes late. This makes the situation tougher for students commuting from rural areas, as pointed out in the Advance HE and HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey 2026, where students from a small town or village are also more likely to live at home with family.

When thinking about travel costs, an University College London (UCL) undergraduate said, ‘some of my friends commute using buses because it is cheaper, but they are also usually slower due to which these same friends sometimes skip lectures or seminars’. A National Union of Students (NUS) survey also found 20% of 3500 students missed classes due to travel costs.

Impact on society involvement and belonging

The consequences of commuting extend well beyond the lecture theatre. The Bristol Student Union focus groups found that commuter students were suffering from loneliness and isolation, wanting to join societies and attend socials but being unable to do so due to transport issues. Most student group activities and social events take place during evenings or weekends and are not justifiable to commute to if that is the only reason to travel that day.

Relocation to attend university has become a predictor of success. Those who commute have a poorer experience throughout the student lifecycle, from engaging with learning opportunities and extra-curricular activities, through to continuation, attainment and graduate outcomes.

The contrast with what is possible is instructive. The University of Bath does not schedule any academic activity on Wednesday afternoons, preserving time specifically for society events and student life. The result is not a logistical concession but rather a statement about what universities believe student experience is for. Commuter students benefit enormously from such predictable timetabling, because it allows them to plan travel purposefully rather than making an additional journey for a single evening event.

What needs to change?

The evidence points toward two clear areas for action.

First, universities should move toward more condensed timetabling by clustering contact hours to reduce the number of journeys required per week and releasing timetable changes earlier so students can plan and book cheaper travel. Consistent access to online resources, including recorded lectures and virtual office hours, is essential for occasions when commuting is simply not an option. Additionally, as society events are overseen by university Student Unions, which are largely independent of the university, the Student Unions should also consider event timetabling with an option to attend virtually, at least for career-oriented events such as alumni panels.

Second, the Office for Students, which added commuter students to its Equality of Opportunity Risk Register in 2024, should use that recognition as a lever by requiring higher education institutions to demonstrate, through access and participation plans, what concrete steps they are taking to reduce the disadvantage commuting creates.

The student at the beginning of this blog, who described their Thursday, is not asking for special treatment. They are asking for a university that has thought carefully enough about them before designing their week. That is not too much to ask.