Get smart: Why the key to a world-class student experience is better measurement

Competitive pressures in higher education are intensifying, and students now have more choice – and more power – than ever before.

Not surprisingly, student experience has become a key point of differentiation for universities, with a growing recognition of its importance in supporting enrolment, retention, and their own long-term financial success.

But what has become more evident in recent times is that how the student experience is measured is just as critical as what is delivered. Indeed, the next frontier in sustained success for universities lies in who best listens, responds, and adapts.

The best universities are moving away from long, retrospective feedback cycles and toward lightweight, real-time, and student-centred methods that support continuous improvement. They have recognised that traditional student surveys are falling short. Crucially, they’re not just measuring experience. They are elevating student voice as a core part of university life.

In doing so, they are forming an enduring advantage that is also delivering financial sustainability.

A high-quality student experience isn’t just a matter of student satisfaction. It has a direct impact on enrolment, retention, reputation, and funding.

A positive experience increases the likelihood that students will complete their studies, recommend their university to peers, and speak positively about their experience. Graduates who feel supported and connected are also more likely to become long-term advocates and contributors to their alumni community. They are also more likely to undertake a second qualification at the same institution.

Within a more competitive environment, student experience has become a strategic priority for universities, as the golden thread for attraction, completion and learner success.

But delivering on that ambition requires better measurement.

Most universities still rely on end-of-term evaluations and national student surveys to assess student sentiment. Some universities also run annual surveys. These have been the default for decades, but today they present a series of growing challenges.

Students are over-surveyed. Multiple, lengthy surveys from different parts of the university accumulate across the year. Questions are often duplicated, and students begin to disengage. This is compounded by universities rarely reporting back the changes they have made following student feedback. As a result, response rates fall, and some student groups become systematically underrepresented. Worryingly, those under-represented are often those most at risk of not completing their university studies.

Most surveys are administered after a subject, or touch point with a service, has concluded. That means problems aren’t caught in time, and students don’t benefit from their own feedback. Data is often manually processed and slowly shared, further delaying the path from insight to action.

Traditional surveys are often distributed by email, yet students are increasingly disengaged from email in favour of LMS platforms, apps, and messaging tools. When surveys don’t reach students where they are, engagement suffers further.

A common challenge for universities is the lack of coordination across survey and feedback efforts, largely due to the number of disconnected systems in use. While many have attempted internal workarounds to stitch these systems together, true coordination remains elusive. This fragmentation increases the risk of duplicate or unvalidated responses and limits the reliability of insights through an inability to bring together multiple survey data sets.

Compounding the issue is the absence of a central account model. Without it, institutions struggle to link feedback with key student data, such as demographics, course enrolment, international status, academic progress, or LMS engagement. As such, they are unbale to see a full picture of each student drawing on all the data available to an institution.

Universities remain overly reliant on national surveys like QILT. These tools have significant limitations: data is delayed by up to nine months, and the insights lack the specificity needed to drive meaningful, timely change. By design, national surveys are broad and general to serve system-wide benchmarking and not local decision-making. Moreover, outsourcing measurement to third parties does little to build the internal capability required to consistently monitor, respond to, and improve the student experience.

In sum, these issues leave institutions with patchy data, limited responsiveness, and student cohorts who feel unheard and are under-represented in the institution’s data. 

Leading institutions are rethinking how they gather and respond to feedback. They are moving away from infrequent, burdensome surveys toward real-time, continuous and student-centred models. In doing so, they’re embedding student voice into the everyday rhythm of university life, not just capturing sentiment, but acting on it in visible, consistent ways.

The best universities are implementing short, targeted pulse surveys across the full student journey. They are capturing insights at key touchpoints such as orientation, mid-semester, placements, and service interactions. 

One dual-sector university, for example, detected an early decline in student perceptions of support using this approach, allowing for faster and more targeted action. Without a pulse approach, the gap for remedy may have been as long as a year.

To increase participation, feedback tools are now embedded directly within students' learning and communication environments, such as learning management systems (LMS), mobile apps, and other forms of communication. They are lightweight and easy for students to engage within a matter of seconds.  By meeting students where they already are, universities are seeing response rates rise significantly, often two to three times more than the 5–15 per cent typical of traditional email-based surveys.

Educators are increasingly using quick, in-class check-ins to identify confusion, disengagement, or wellbeing concerns before they escalate. These short feedback loops allow staff to respond in real time by adjusting teaching approaches, supporting at-risk students, and improving outcomes as they go. Given subject experience is the largest driver of overall student satisfaction, it makes sense to empower frontline educators with a powerful stream of continuous data. 

Universities are increasingly moving to a single platform for student feedback and surveys. This not only makes sense to students – who rightfully ask why so many systems are currently in place – but also allows for greater insight across the institution. Universities can easily stitch together data sets to get a deeper understanding of the response they receive with effectively no manual effort. Data integrity is also maximised with only validated responses, eliminating duplicates. 

Modern feedback systems provide educators and university leaders with real-time access to segmented data, enabling more agile, evidence-based decisions. Some platforms also offer benchmarking capabilities, allowing institutions to compare their performance across student-facing services with peer organisations and sector norms.

A truly student-centred approach to student feedback requires a view of each student, seeing their lifecycle in an easily view. The best systems are increasingly developing this view for universities, allowing for a deeper understanding of the student experience and moving away from a reliance on general data sets such as QILT.

The best universities are now looking for ways to close the loop by showing students how their input has led to real change. Two university-wide updates per year – paired with targeted, local communications at the course level – can significantly strengthen trust and boost student engagement. This regular, visible feedback loop helps students see the impact of their input and encourages ongoing participation. It turns feedback from a one-way process into a meaningful dialogue.

Competitive pressures are mounting, and students have more choice than ever. A leading student experience now directly influences enrolment, retention, and financial sustainability. In a managed system, this makes it a strategic imperative, not a nice-to-have.

But, for universities, how the student experience is measured is just as critical as what is delivered. The next frontier in sustained success for universities lies in who best listens, responds, and adapts.

A continuous, timely, and student-centred approach to measurement is no longer optional. It’s the foundation for staying ahead. Institutions that invest in this capability will gain a lasting advantage.

Get in touch to learn more about StudentSense, Nous Data Insights' lightweight, real-time, and student-centric solution for measuring and improving the student experience.

Connect with Ben Barnett, Managing Director of StudentSense, on LinkedIn.

This is the second in our three-part series on university growth in the managed era. Read the first part here.