Recommendations for equitable student support during disruptions to the higher education sector: lessons from COVID-19

Disasters disproportionately impact marginalised groups. The [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption in higher education students' experiences. We sought to understand how twelve universities across three countries (10 in Australia, one in the UK and one in the US) endeavoured to support students to retain access to learning through COVID-19, particularly those from minoritised and intersectional backgrounds. We were guided by the following overarching questions: What strategies did universities employ to support students during COVID-19 and what was the uptake of these strategies by students? How did students perceive the usefulness of institutional COVID-19 support initiatives? How did students experience the impacts of COVID-19 in 2020? To deepen our learning, points of comparison were made between countries, institution types, and student cohorts from minoritised, intersectional, and non-minoritised backgrounds.

We identified learning, wellbeing, and finances as the three main foci of our investigation of student support and experiences in our analytic framework. A mixed-methods approach was used to address the research questions through two data collection processes at each participating institution: an analysis of institutional communication artefacts (emails and websites) detailing university responses to student support during COVID-19; and a survey of over 2500 students regarding their perceptions of the impacts of the pandemic on university experiences and the adequacy and use of institutional support during COVID-19. The artefact analysis focused on the intended student demographics, type of support, accessibility of support, timing of support, and user experience of support access. The student experience survey collected data on: student demographics and self-identified minoritised status; sense of belonging at university; change in student experience resulting from COVID-19; uptake and usefulness of university support services.

Most institutions equally split resources between learning (40 per cent) and wellbeing (39 per cent) support, with less support offered for students' financial needs (21 per cent). Across all three areas, how students could access support was often unclear, suggesting that communications and websites could be more specific. Overall, few supports were targeted specifically for students from minoritised backgrounds (16 per cent across all universities). In Australian universities, most of the tailored support was for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Regional/remote universities offered the highest proportion of tailored support relative to other type of universities.

Students in their survey responses reported strong preferences for how universities communicated during COVID-19. Students at UK and US universities indicated that both the learning experience and general wellbeing was worse during the pandemic than students from Australia. Fewer students at international universities indicated that their financial situation worsened due to the pandemic when compared with students at Australian universities. A key benefit that students gained during the pandemic was that the shift to learning online/blended learning for previously face-to-face students opened up a level of flexibility which made learning more accessible, particularly for students from minoritised backgrounds. This accessibility and flexibility prompted ripple benefits which enhanced students' wellbeing and financial situations.

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