How does commuting affect student engagement?

12 August 2026

Every day it takes me over an hour by public transport each way from my home to the Mile End campus where I work, which is pretty average for London. Over the course of an academic year this equates to about 240 hours (10 full days!) of time spent sitting in traffic or on the tube, and that’s just during the semesters.

I’m being paid to be at work, so the financial, time and energy cost of getting to campus is worth it for me. However, if instead I was a student paying tuition fees, it’s easy to see why I may occasionally choose to skip a lecture and stay home, saving myself a bit of money, time and stress. My commute time of about an hour is average for students, who are instead paying to be here, so I am very interested in how commuting students experience university and how their commute impacts their opportunities and experience on campus. Crucially following on from this – what can we as a university do to improve accessibility for commuters?

I’ve studied the student experience before coming to QMUL. At my previous university, interviews I conducted with commuting students led to better signing of facilities and the formation of a student support network where students could share information such as road closures, coordinate lift shares, and form their own community. Some issues (such as the need for welly boot storage and the ability to find a decent parking space) will obviously be more specific to a rural campus, whilst my research at QMUL identified there are barriers (such as tube strike uncertainty) more specific to London. Most barriers to education facing commuting students are, however, not university specific, but are rather encountered by commuters across all institutions.

My recent research here includes a student survey co-created by Sitasma Wagle (BSc Biochemistry 2026) as part of her final year dissertation, identifying the biggest barriers to attendance and engagement in commuters at QMUL. We discovered several common features that affect access to education in students in London, which were consistent with the literature and in my previous research. In general, the student experience can be affected by commutes at multiple levels: within the classroom, at the campus level, and beyond the campus.

Within the classroom, teaching practices can affect how welcome a commuting student feels. As a student many years ago, I would routinely miss classes when my bus was late, as the thought of drawing attention to myself by walking into a lecture theatre late would dissuade me from going at all. Interviews and surveys I’ve conducted across different institutions have supported this, suggesting that students worry about being called out, or being thought of as rude or lacking in time management, which makes them less likely to attend at all. At a classroom level, calling out disruption rather than lateness can be one of the ways to make all students feel welcome. Traditional didactic teaching also offers little return on commuting investment. When a student can watch a lecture recording from home, what is the benefit of spending money and time to come to campus? Interactive teaching encouraging student participation makes campus sessions feel more worthwhile.

QMUL has a commuter-friendly campus, but across the sector the facilities can often inadvertently discriminate against commuting students. For example, a lack of showers or storage lockers may dissuade students from cycling to campus. A lack of third spaces may make students feel like there is nowhere to exist between classes, other than a café (where they need to spend money) or the library (where they should be silent). This has knock-on effects on social opportunities, where students are less likely to hang around for evening society events if there is nothing to do and nowhere for them to go between their final lecture and an evening event. Commuting students are therefore often less likely to benefit from societies, and less likely to feel a sense of belonging and community. Timetabling can be likewise optimised for commuters, such as consistently scheduling multiple classes on the same day increases the benefit of coming to campus, by making the time investment of travelling in worthwhile.

Beyond the campus, commutes have a negative impact on time, money and energy, which is exacerbated during peak hours. There is often less that the university can realistically do to affect student experience outside of campus, although perhaps unsurprisingly many students suggested getting rid of 9 am lectures. Regardless, being aware of the struggles faced by commuting students, and designing teaching, timetabling, and campus resources accordingly, can go a long way to improving the student experience and ensuring an equitable campus.

- Dr Clare Montogomery
Lecturer in Biological Sciences

Biological Sciences