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The State of Student Life 2026

What 500 UK student respondents told us about university life

Original Unifresher research into the pressures, choices and experiences shaping student life, from money and accommodation to careers, AI, wellbeing and whether students would choose the same university again.

500 respondents15 survey questionsUK studentsFieldwork 12 to 25 Aug 2026Original Unifresher research
At a glance

The findings that define the study

These figures use the unweighted 500-response series and keep the original question structure visible.

76%

experienced at least one named student-housing issue

380 of 500 selected at least one of landlord, Wi-Fi, property condition, contract or housemate problems.

70%

have a part-time job or are currently looking for one

187 have a part-time job and another 164 said they are looking for one.

65%

worried about finances before starting university

Finances were the most selected pre-university worry, followed by making friends at 57.2%.

13%

say tuition fees definitely represent good value

51% answered sometimes and 36% answered no, so the study does not treat those responses as the same thing.

The wider story

Student life is being shaped by pressure, trade-offs and uncertainty

The strongest value of a structured survey comes from reading related questions together without turning correlation into causation.

Money reaches far beyond budgeting

Finances were the most common pre-university worry, 70.2% are working part-time or looking for work, only 13% give tuition fees an unequivocal good-value rating, and the open-text affordability question records food cutbacks, extra work, borrowing and selling possessions.

Belonging is part of the university experience

57.2% worried about socialising before university, 43.6% rate their work-life-social balance fair or worse, and 46.8% say they have felt pressured to drink or party to fit in at least once.

Students are looking ahead with mixed confidence

Graduate-job confidence averages 5.74 out of 10, while one in three respondents would not definitely choose the same university again if they could start over.

Full results

Every question, with the evidence behind it

Multi-select questions are labelled as such. Open-text results show coded themes rather than pretending free-text answers are fixed-choice data.

01

Preparing for university

What students worried about, and what they wish they had learned first.

Question 1 | Multi-select

What worried you most before starting university?

Base: 500
Finances65.2%
Socialising / making friends57.2%
Workload41.2%
Homesickness24.0%
Respondents could select more than one answer, so percentages do not add to 100%.
Question 2 | Open text

What's one practical skill you wish you'd learned before starting university?

Base: 500
31.0%Budgeting / money management
18.4%Social / communication / confidence
16.8%Cooking / meal preparation
12.4%Time management / organisation
8.2%Independent living / domestic skills
6.8%Study / academic skills
Open-text responses were editorially coded into themes. A response could be assigned to more than one theme, so percentages do not add to 100%.
02

Student accommodation

Housing problems, cost and perceived value.

Question 3 | Open text

How much are you paying weekly for accommodation, and does it feel good value?

Base: 500
Publication note: respondents entered costs in mixed weekly, monthly and annual formats, alongside non-applicable answers. Unifresher is normalising those responses before publishing a hard accommodation-cost figure. This question is not used in the current headline findings.
Question 4 | Multi-select

Have you experienced issues with student housing?

Base: 500
Issues with housemates34.4%
Issues with the house / flat itself32.2%
Issues with Wi-Fi29.4%
Issues with landlords13.0%
Issues with contracts10.8%
76.0% selected at least one of these five named issues, and 29.0% selected two or more. The Pollfish 'Other' category is excluded from those derived measures because manual review shows it contains non-issue and non-applicable answers.
03

Student life and wellbeing

Balance, loneliness and the social side of university.

Question 5

How would you rate your work-life-social balance at university?

Base: 500
Good47.8%
Fair33.2%
Poor9.0%
Excellent8.6%
Very poor1.4%
43.6% rated their balance fair, poor or very poor.
Question 6 | 1 to 10 scale

On a scale of 1-10, how lonely do you feel at uni?

Base: 500
Mean5.89
Median6
Scale direction1 - 10
1 = very lonely. 10 = not lonely at all. The direction of the scale should always accompany the average.
04

Work and careers

Part-time employment and confidence about life after graduation.

Question 7

Do you currently have a part-time job alongside your studies?

Base: 500
Yes37.4%
No - but I'm looking for one32.8%
No - I'm not looking for one29.8%
70.2% either have a part-time job or said they are currently looking for one.
Question 8 | 1 to 10 scale

How confident do you feel about securing a graduate job after finishing uni?

Base: 500
Mean5.74
Median6
Scale direction1 - 10
1 = not confident at all. 10 = very confident.
05

Choosing a university

What mattered before enrolment and how students feel about the decision now.

Question 9 | Multi-select

What mattered most when choosing your university?

Base: 500
Location64.2%
Reputation or ranking47.2%
Teaching quality46.0%
Cost44.4%
Social life32.8%
Graduate prospects28.6%
Respondents could select more than one answer. Location was the most selected factor.
Question 10

Would you choose the same university again if you could start over?

Base: 500
Yes66.6%
Not sure18.6%
No14.8%
33.4% would not definitely choose the same university again. This combines No and Not sure and should not be described as 'regret'.
06

Student attitudes, pressure and support

AI, tuition value, financial coping, mental health support and pressure to fit in.

Question 11

Is using AI on a uni assignment cheating, and would you ever report another student for using AI to complete a uni assignment?

Base: 500
Yes it's cheating, but I wouldn't report anyone61.4%
No it's not cheating19.4%
Yes it's cheating and I would report someone19.2%
80.6% selected one of the two answers describing AI use as cheating, but only 19.2% said they would report someone.
Question 12

Do you think tuition fees represent good value for money?

Base: 500
Sometimes51.0%
No36.0%
Yes13.0%
The 51% answering Sometimes are kept distinct from the 36% answering No.
Question 13 | Open text

What's the most drastic thing you've done to be able to afford rent, bills and other parts of student life?

Base: 500
15.2%described a broader form of food sacrifice or cutback
9.2%explicitly described skipped meals, going without food or not buying food
8.8%described selling possessions under a strict manual review
These are editorially coded open-text themes. A response may appear in more than one theme. Sensitive responses are reported in aggregate rather than sensationalised individually.
Question 14

Do you think universities do enough to support student mental health?

Base: 500
No42.0%
Yes33.6%
Not sure24.4%
This measures respondent perception of university support. It is not an objective audit of support quality.
Question 15

Have you ever felt pressured to drink or party to "fit in" socially?

Base: 500
No, never53.2%
Yes, multiple times29.8%
Yes, one experience17.0%
46.8% selected one of the two Yes answers, meaning they had experienced this pressure at least once.
Cross-question analysis

What becomes visible when the answers are read together?

These are descriptive associations within the achieved sample. They do not prove that one experience caused another.

University choice and loneliness

Respondents who would choose the same university again reported a higher average score on the 1 to 10 non-lonely scale.

6.20Would choose again, n=333
vs
4.66Would not, n=74

University choice and graduate confidence

Graduate-job confidence was also higher among respondents who said they would make the same university choice again.

6.02Would choose again, n=333
vs
4.89Would not, n=74

Social pressure and mental-health support

Respondents who had experienced pressure to drink or party multiple times were more likely to say universities do not do enough for student mental health.

61.1%Pressured multiple times, n=149
vs
32.3%Never pressured, n=266

Balance and graduate confidence

Students rating their work-life-social balance good or excellent reported higher average graduate-job confidence.

6.30Good / excellent, n=282
vs
5.01Fair / poor / very poor, n=218
Evidence boundaries

What this survey can and cannot tell us

Strong research is clearer when the limits of the evidence are as visible as the headline statistics.

What it can show

  • How these 500 UK student respondents answered each question.
  • Patterns across questions in the same respondent-level dataset.
  • Open-text themes when the coding method is explained.
  • Descriptive differences between groups when both bases are shown.

What it cannot prove automatically

  • That one experience caused another.
  • That every UK student shares the same experience.
  • That a sensitive response is a clinical diagnosis.
  • That Pollfish stratified results are representative of UK students without a confirmed student-population benchmark.
Methodology

How the research was handled

The public result uses the unweighted 500-response series so every published percentage stays directly tied to completed respondents in the achieved sample.

Study
Unifresher Student Experience Survey 2026
Fieldwork
12 to 25 August 2026
Achieved sample
500 respondents recorded as students in the United Kingdom
Questionnaire
15 numbered questions covering preparation, accommodation, student life, jobs and careers, university choice, AI, tuition value, financial pressure, mental health support and social pressure.
Primary result series
Unweighted raw responses
Open-text coding
Responses were grouped into editorial themes. Q2 and Q13 use multi-label coding, so one answer can contribute to more than one theme.
Accommodation cost
Q3 is excluded from current hard headline statistics while mixed weekly, monthly, annual and non-applicable responses are normalised.
Cross-question analysis
Reported as descriptive association only. It is not used to claim causation.
Editorial independence
No commercial partner directed the questionnaire, analysis or interpretation published on this page.
Reuse and licensing
Published aggregate findings may be quoted with attribution. See Data Hub press and citation guidance for reuse terms.
Read the full Data Hub methodology

Cite this study

Unifresher Student Experience Survey 2026. 500 UK student respondents. Fieldwork 12 to 25 August 2026. Original Unifresher research. unifresher.co.uk/data-hub/surveys/student-experience-survey-2026/

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