Post-pandemic universities need to build communities, not ivory towers

Universities that understand that change is to be embraced are adapting to the expectations of millennial and Gen Z students. Picture: Graham Crouch

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Millennials and Gen Z are reshaping markets in a way not seen since their elders were first dubbed boomers. Different values, different economic motives and anxieties, and different consumption patterns are driving this change.

That can spell trouble for operators in broadcast media and advertising, politics and retail who have built their business models around boomers and Gen Xers and neglect, or refuse, to adapt their offerings. We’re not just talking about selling life insurance and cruises.

The shifting wants and needs of millennials and Gen Z have myriad implications. For those of us in higher education, we’re sitting up and taking notice. Before we can even begin to formulate a strategy to recruit and teach these potential future students, we need to listen to their hopes and plans, understand how they want to work and study, and recognise their legitimate fears about embarking on a degree.

We know millennials and Gen Z approach university with more trepidation than their boomer and Gen X predecessors. A big part of that is the cost of higher education. In 1989, Gen Xers had 90 per cent of their course fees paid by the government. Gen Z now has on average closer to 50 per cent of their course subsidised.

Even acknowledging the very helpful federal government commitment to lower HECS debt by 20 per cent, this cost is still seen as a millstone around the necks of younger generations. This is a cohort that is already pessimistic about the prospect of getting a job that pays a good enough wage to get ahead, buy a home or comfortably raise a family.

At the same time, higher education is seen as a necessity, not an advantage. Because the stakes are high, there is heightened anxiety around the choice of study and university. Part of that anxiety is, first, related to being able to finish your degree and, second, finish it intact. By intact, aspiring millennials and Gen Z students mean financially and mentally intact, with their passion for their field of study preserved, if not enhanced.

They cannot afford to just keep trying until they pass, so finding a uni that best understands them, the challenges they have in their life and what they need to succeed in their studies (on the first go) is critical.

Universities must also be aware that the school-leavers coming to us are still dealing with the trauma of Covid lockdowns. This generation places a strong emphasis on wellbeing. They might come to us as digital natives but they are over online schooling. They want their university experience to be an antidote to the isolation and dislocation of Covid. They want connection. They want community.

Bill Shorten. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

So why do we still offer ivory towers? The incoming generation of students sees a disconnect between that outdated version of an Australian university and them. Too often millennials and Gen Z look at universities and see cold institutions that talk about themselves; obsessing over prestige or over rankings that give no indication of what is behind the curtain, of what the day-to-day experience is actually like. That information is critical to their choice because what it is actually like has a lot of money, time and personal sacrifice riding on it.

These young people do not want the overwhelming array of product information, in inaccessible forms and vocabulary. Nor the images of students – all aspirational and middle class – that simply don’t reflect how members of this new generation see themselves. They want a university that values and encourages a learning community, not a slick and soulless corporation that sees everything through the lens of revenue.

Universities that understand that change is to be embraced are adapting to the expectations of millennial and Gen Z students.

They are the unis that are clear-eyed about who they serve and what their strengths are. Those that authentically engage with future students and don’t over-promise at the risk of underdelivering. Those that are practical and prepare their students to enter a workplace with skills that are wanted by business and relevant.

These are the obligations of a modern Australian university, and we must honour those obligations – to our community and to our nation. Anything less is a breach of our social licence to operate.

Bill Shorten is vice-chancellor and president of the University of Canberra. He was leader of the Labor Party from 2013 to 2019