Precarious pasts and fragile futures: are we creating a student commutercariat?

Higher education is widely promoted as a route to social mobility, yet significant inequalities persist in access and participation. Expansion has not eliminated structural inequalities nor fair access, instead it has created fragile transitions and precarious futures as new entrants increasingly decide to ‘stay local’.

This study focuses on first-year undergraduate students at a post-1992 university in the Midlands who travel to their local university. It challenges deficit-based constructions of “non-traditional” students, arguing that commuting has become increasingly normal despite being associated with marginalisation and reduced belonging. Using a Foucauldian framework, the research examines how commuter students are problematised through educational discourse.

Qualitative data from 44 Education Studies students explores identity, precarity, belonging, engagement, retention, and the complex realities of transitioning to university within a context of social and economic disadvantage. It examines the fragility of their educational experiences and subsequent instrumental approach to university study and their pragmatic responses. Students who travel to study are aspirational and agentic but are subject to a discourse of being risky, and lacking belonging. Yet, student commuters, without due recognition and focus are becoming the ‘student commutercariat,’ contributing and adjusting to an outdated anachronistic university experience.

Recommendations include a consideration of precarious transitions by addressing the student commuter discourse, recognition and empowerment through providing sensible admissions, advice and rationalising entry to HE. It proposes considering university enculturation through establishing that students travel to study as the norm, thus challenging a normative discourse and to ensure a more equitable university experience.