Navigating Complexity: Rethinking Student Support in the Current Climate within Higher Education

Higher education institutions are operating within an increasingly complex and evolving landscape, shaped by financial pressures, ongoing digital transformations, and widening participation agendas. Students are navigating challenging circumstances including cost of living pressures, competing responsibilities, and increased mental health needs. At the same time, the expansion of hybrid, online, and distance learning programmes has transformed how students engage within higher education, requiring more flexible, responsive, and accessible forms of support. Alongside these developments, institutions have accountability demands linked to retention and progression. These intersecting pressures demonstrate the need to reconsider student support, moving from fragmented approaches towards more integrated, institution-wide systems that can respond to the complexity of the contemporary student experience.The research topic addresses a critical issue in higher education: the mismatch between increasing accountability demands and the complex, evolving needs of contemporary students. Institutions are required to demonstrate success through metrics such as retention and progression in a context of students experiencing financial instability, wellbeing challenges, and diverse life circumstances that existing, often fragmented support systems are not designed to address effectively.To address this disconnect, this research topic explores how student support can be reconceptualised and redesigned. Specifically, the focus is on developing and evaluating integrated, institution-wide approaches that embed support throughout the student journey. It aims to identify innovative, evidence-informed models capable of responding to student complexity amid the accountability frameworks that shape contemporary higher education practice.The research topic focuses on student support as an integrated system and welcomes contributions that examine evolving student needs alongside the impact of hybrid, online, and distance learning environments, particularly in the current context of data-driven accountability pressures on higher education staff.We are interested in submissions that offer critical insight into current support practices. Relevant themes include:- Integrated and institution-wide approaches to student support- Student support in hybrid, online, and distance learning contexts- Student lived experiences and changing support needs- Staff roles and practices in delivering support- Accountability, metrics, and data-driven decision-makingWe invite empirical studies, conceptual or theoretical papers, case studies, and analyses of policies that highlight innovative and effective approaches to student support. Topic editors: Ruth Hudson, Melanie Jayne Beckett Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81946/navigating-complexity-rethinking-student-support-in-the-current-climate-within-higher-education