Why are some students ignoring government guidelines and returning to university?

Current lockdown rules implore students to stay at home, but some have still chosen to come back. Six undergraduates at six British universities explain to Pi Media why they have returned to their term-time addresses.

Students in masks wait in a socially distanced line. Photo by Alliance for Excellent Education, taken 6 October, 2020. CC-BY-NC 2.0.

On January 7, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that England would enter its third national lockdown.

But the decision taken by Number 10 has had profound ramifications for the majority of students. 

Excluding a limited number of those enrolled onto specified courses, these measures have delayed university students´ return to campus until mid-February and yet again reduced their access to face-to-face teaching and university facilities. 

However, some have opted to defy government guidance and returned to their student digs. 

A literature student at UCL told Pi Media that the "main reason" she returned to her London home was the need to obtain physical books that were otherwise "very difficult to get hold of."

She also claimed that as a third-year student, her "whole life is in London."

Whilst this, she stressed, did not negate from how "lovely" it was to return to visit her family, she said that "my home is here now and it was quite difficult to be away from it for much longer."

Given that she, as an international student, purchased her plane tickets before Johnson's announcement, there was also "no way of knowing that the return would be problematic." 

Nonetheless, the UCL finalist said that her return has enabled her to "socialise" with her housemates and added "it really helps to have people around you that are going through the same thing."

The changes made to university study have prompted many students, including over 3,000 at UCL, to demand the reintroduction of the “no detriment” policy. This would provide a safety net and prevent any student from being academically disadvantaged by the Covid-crisis.

This literature student argued in favour of its reintroduction and said: "while it might have been relatively easy for me to turn on my laptop and attend the lecture, it was not necessarily the case for people that moved many time zones away, that have poor connection, whose physical and mental health has been affected by the pandemic, whose home is not a suitable or even a safe environment to study."

Studying in London also comes with additional costs, including higher rent prices. It has been previously estimated that the monthly cost of renting in London averages at £840 per month.

One student at another university in the capital cited her work as a nanny and "paying rent for a house that would otherwise be empty" as the central reasons that she returned to her term-time address.

She also insisted that the government and universities should offer financial support to "help students with rent" and said that the reintroduction of the no detriment policy was needed because "it is unfair to expect students to produce the same quality of work when their teaching and circumstances have all changed."

Whilst these costs are not as extortionate in other corners of the country, students in private accommodation throughout Britain feel aggrieved that they have not been supported with their rent payments.

One student who left their family home in the east of England to return to university argued that such costs and her family's "hectic" move from one house to another motivated her to return to university to complete her online exams. 

Another finalist at university in the East Midlands stated that his move back to university was influenced by a "need" to access books for his dissertation that "were not available online."

With the library open he hopes that a return to his campus-based home will enable him to "have access to a wider range of relevant material."

However, an undergraduate in the West Midlands explained that the fear of giving coronavirus to his parents made him "anxious" and given young people are "very unlikely to experience severe complications from contracting Covid-19" he has been less worried since his return to university.

He then suggested that both the government and universities could help alleviate the pressures students faced by improving mental health provisions and offering "some level of financial compensation."

Whilst again a supporter of the “no detriment” policy, the student also indicated he hoped the pandemic would "serve as a wake-up call" for the government. 

This, he believes, will not only force the government to consider reducing tuition fees but also require them to "properly invest in and improve higher education."

This was echoed by a final year psychology student at a university in the South East, who said: "I feel like university students' wishes and needs have been ignored and undermined during Covid-19." 

"Focus on schools seems to be more important when they should be equal," she added.

The finalist then explained that access to counselling on campus has been reduced, both because of social distancing guidelines and an increase in demand, and highlighted that "it takes weeks for there to be spaces available to sign up."

However, she cited limited workspace, with both her father and sister now working from home, as the main reason she returned to her student digs.

Already the psychology student believes her decision has been beneficial and claimed she has been "more productive" in her first week back than she had been during the weeks spent at her family home over the Christmas period.

Nevertheless, she also described how student's social lives have been restricted throughout the pandemic.

This, she said, made her "feel for freshers" who cannot socialise during a period that is supposed to be "the best years of your life."