Afterword: Why Histories of Students Matter Now

Higher education (HE) in the UK faces deep uncertainty, with policy discourse increasingly focused on quantifiable graduate outcomes. Histories of HE have often reflected this emphasis, marginalising students’ lived experiences and privileging policymaker perspectives. This afterword draws together insights from this special issue, considering the methodological opportunities and limitations presented by three major archival bases for writing student-centred histories: policy materials, Higher Education Institution (HEI) archives, and student-produced sources. While HEI archives have diversified, their holdings remain shaped by institutional priorities and boundedness. Student-produced materials, meanwhile, offer valuable but partial perspectives, often privileging politically active or socially confident students. By recovering the diverse experiences and social contributions of students, such histories can strengthen HE’s collective capacity to articulate its value to society: a task made ever more urgent by current demands to renew ‘policy memory’ and a more holistic understanding of educational outcomes. By addressing the omission of student outcomes in existing histories, histories of students might provide historians, policymakers, and the public at large a fuller picture of the contribution of higher education to the common good. It can demonstrate how HE was transformative for lives in transmitting, adapting, and challenging normative authority, and illuminate its complicities.