Social support at university is key for student wellbeing and retention. The majority of undergraduate students live with same-age housemates, so examining the relationship that students have with their housemates may be critical for understanding student adjustment. However, to date, social relationships within university accommodation have not…

This article argues that to understand higher education student retention, equal emphasis needs to be placed on successful integration into the social world of the university as into the academic world. To date, sociological research reflecting first-year students' perceptions of the processes involved in developing social lives at university is…

This collection of papers discusses the experience of students in the United Kingdom's new, mass higher education system. The papers are viewed as dispatches from the "front line" rather than conventional analyses by education researchers. The organization of the papers mirrors the stages of students' experience of higher…