Enhancing the higher education experience of mature students

This collaborative work from St Martin’s College, Salford and Middlesex Universities brings together experiences of mature students, (21+ years of age on entry), in a phenomenological piece of research identifying the different ways in which they feel supported in their undergraduate studies. There is particular value to the collaborative aspect of this research as it pulls together the differences in management and structures from a higher education college, a pre-1992 and post-1992 institutions. This paper aims to highlight the findings of the research at a point in time to feature the concerns of mature students on entering and the transition into HE, to demonstrate what mature students attribute to encouraging them to succeed and persist in their studies, learning ‘what works’ type strategies from the three institutions and devising new strategies to support not only this particular group of students, but all during their undergraduate studies