Commuter students: does reducing the need to travel enable more inclusive, equitable participation?

Forty per cent of Higher Education (HE) students in the UK are commuter students. This is a direct consequence of initiatives to widen participation to HE to under-represented groups, many of whom are unable or unwilling to relocate to the site of learning. Commuter students have significantly poorer experience and outcomes than their residential counterparts. It is important to reduce this attainment and experience gap. This paper explores the possibility that reducing the need to travel to higher education institutions (HEIs), by increasing online learning, could achieve this. This paper presents empirical evidence from a series of in-depth interviews with commuter students at an English HEI, who reflect on their experiences of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Findings confirm that reducing the need to travel, through greater use of online HE, post-pandemic, could have multiple benefits for commuter students, enhancing engagement, experience and outcomes. However, such a move must be accompanied by wider institutional changes to pedagogy, policy and processes, which acknowledge the decline of the residential model of UK HE in the widening participation (WP) era, to minimise potential negative effects.