Walking down Broad Street can sometimes resemble a school register. It would, admittedly, be a strange class that comprised Thomas Bodley, the Weston family, the first Earl of Clarendon, and Gilbert Sheldon. But Oxford’s avenues are littered with the names of its donors, on libraries, museums, and faculties. Such a privilege is anything but cheap. Julian Blackwell’s £5 million donation to the Weston Library gave him a hall. For naming rights to a whole building, you’d be looking at something closer to the Weston family’s donation of £25 million.

Carving your name into the fabric of Oxford is undoubtedly a tempting idea. Initials can be found carved into stone, into pews, into walls, by students responding to just this. It’s catnip to donors. Universities are not cheap to run, and expansion is even more expensive. Combining the two ideas, using the allure of naming rights to secure funding for the University’s future, is inevitable. 

A donor is inextricably linked to Oxford when a building is given their name, with their involvement discernible just from looking at a map of the city. It associates the donor with education and philanthropy – noble aims that can be exploited into ‘reputation laundering’. Furthermore, it represents trust in the family in question, not just at the time of the donation, but for as long as the building stands. This might be centuries. As a result, named buildings pose huge potential liabilities to the credibility of the University by cementing a legacy on the security of little more than money.

These risks are not theoretical. It took me two years to actually work out where the Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library was. Everyone I spoke to going in that direction still called it the Sackler.

In the wake of the Sackler support scandal, Oxford has not resiled from naming buildings after the biggest contributors. The Schwarzman Centre, opened earlier this month, was the result of the largest donation received by the University since the Renaissance. High-level donors receive other tangible benefits, including regular communications with the Vice Chancellor, and contact with the Chancellor and other senior levels of the University. Allowing them to stamp their names onto the city with no more than a bank statement connecting them to Oxford risks rendering the city a playground for the vanity of the rich. Are the benefits of this money worth it? 

Bodley and Sheldon

The Old Bodleian Library, the oldest named University building in Oxford, actually bucks this trend. It is named after Thomas Bodley, who was instrumental in reviving the library after the Reformation. Previously, Oxford’s only library had been housed in Divinity Schools. This collection of religious tracts did not fare well in the 16^th century – the Dean of Christ Church removed all of its “superstitious books and images” in 1550. Bodley, a fellow of Merton College, devoted his retirement to refurbishing the building and donating some of the 2,500 books contained on its 1602 reopening. He also took the first steps towards making the Bodleian a legal deposit library, striking an agreement with the Stationers’ Hall that they would send the Bodleian a copy of every book registered to their hall. Operationally, the Bodleian would not exist in the form we currently see without Bodley. He also contributed financially, largely with the money received from marriage to a wealthy widow.

Gilbert Sheldon, who paid the full cost of Sheldonian construction, was also Warden of All Souls, Chancellor of the University, and had to be physically ejected from All Souls by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. While his involvement was more financial than operational, he was closely connected to Oxford. The Sheldonian marks both his money and his effort, and provides a connection to Oxford’s history. The building is richer for its association with Sheldon – more closely integrated into the heritage of the city. 

Keep it in the family

John Radcliffe, who provided £40,000 for the construction of the Radcliffe Camera in 1714, gave the money in his will on the condition that construction would not begin until he and his sisters had all died. Clearly, he had an eye for a legacy, but this was a legacy he did not wish to realise during his life. In fact, he appeared to want no part of his generation to see his library. When the Radcliffe Library (as it was then known) was built, it therefore appeared less a personal project, and more a donation to the future of science. A board of trustees still manage Radcliffe’s testament today.

However, giving your name to a building puts a more metaphorical trust in every subsequent generation of the family. In 1884, Augustus Pitt Rivers gave over 20,000 archaeological artefacts to the University, which became the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum. By all accounts, he was devoted to the subject, with a focus on scientific archaeology, and on cataloguing everything, not just aesthetically-pleasing pieces, which changed the way museums and excavations were viewed.   Fifty-six years later, Pitt Rivers and Oxford were linked once more. This occurred when Augustus’ grandson, George Pitt Rivers, requested in 1940 that, if he had to be interned for his support of Oswald Mosley, he would prefer for it to be at Worcester College. It was this Pitt Rivers who gave the skull-cup used by the Worcester SCR until 2015, which had itself come from his grandfather’s private collection.

This unfortunate connection did not impact the Pitt Rivers Museum at the time, but the more recent revelations risk undermining the work that it has done to move away from its colonial legacy. It’s worth noting that the Pitt Rivers family, while always linked to ethnography, has approached it in very different ways depending on the generation. Julian Pitt Rivers, George’s son, was a vocal supporter of cultural diversity, in sharp contrast to his eugenicist father. The problem is that, by tying the building and the work of the museum to a single family, its work is forever linked to their lives and their interests. When attempting to move away from some aspects of ethnography and archaeology, particularly concerning human remains, it is difficult to remain named after a man who collected so many of them.

The Art, Archaeological, and Ancient History Library (neé Sackler)

One of Thomas Bodley’s innovations had been a Register of Donors, allowing names of donors to be publicly displayed. A successor to this, the Clarendon Arch, carries on this legacy, bearing the names of the most significant benefactors of the University. This arch is one of the only places where the Sackler family are still present in Oxford. In a statement released in 2023, the University removed the pharmaceutical dynasty’s name from a gallery, a fellowship, and a library. This was four years after the first institutions had started to ‘de-Sackler’ their buildings, and a year after Purdue Pharma settled their suit from US states alleging that they fuelled the opioid crisis.

Treatment of donors is increasingly systematised and incentivised. The Development Office’s page highlights the perks of giving. The very first option is “naming opportunities”. Then, the Vice-Chancellor’s Circle provides “regular communications from the Vice-Chancellor” as well as an annual members’ event. The Vice Chancellor’s Guild gives you this, as well as an annual dinner in Oxford. The highest circle is the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors, meeting twice a year in Oxford and London. The description highlights the “chance to engage with the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and other senior leaders within the collegiate University” to help develop “a greater understanding of the life and work of the University and the colleges”.

The approach taken appears to move away from naming opportunities as recognition for work done within the University. Instead, it encourages specifically external figures, dangling the chance of networking with senior figures in exchange for donations. The more you give, the more access you receive. A month after the Purdue Pharma settlement, Theresa Sackler (a member of the Chancellor’s Court) was invited to a private screening of the Boat Race on board the Erasmus, an event attended by both the Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor.

A close relationship to donors makes their support more likely. However, it also becomes more difficult to sever ties. With the level of personal connection given to modern donors, there may be reluctance to completely cut off those who have gone awry. While disgraced donors can use the University’s name for a semblance of credibility, the University is pulled into the scandal, and suffers reputational damage as a result. Providing access to the extent that the Chancellor’s Court does, and tying the University to its largest donors, relies on the donors themselves being truly benevolent. The Sacklers are a key example of the naivety of such a belief.

The future of donations

But running a university is only becoming more expensive. With lower levels of government support, and capped tuition fees for domestic students, universities have to find some way of funding expansions. Advances in technology, increasing student numbers, and environmental priorities all point towards building more. If putting a donor’s name on a wall ensures that their £185 billion can help make study of the humanities more accessible, then what’s wrong with that?

The recently-opened Schwarzman Centre is an example of this continued practice. Stephen Schwarzman did not attend Oxford. The co-founder of Blackstone, Schwarzman has donated to institutions including the New York Public Library, the Tsinghua University, and MIT. His asset management firm, the largest commercial landlord in history, has been accused by a United Nations adviser of helping to fuel the global housing crisis. The firm denies these allegations, and say that they are based on “factual errors and inaccurate conclusions”.

The Schwarzmann Centre for the Humanities is certainly a boon for the University. It helps bring Oxford closer to its sustainability goals, and puts seven faculties under one roof, promoting interdisciplinary cooperation. Its concert spaces are accessible and support the arts at a time when government funding is extremely limited. Its AI Institute could help analyse and solve the problems faced by the emerging technology. But something does ring hollow about using money raised in sky-high rents and gentrification to investigate the problems of the future. It helps the University, and it helps humanity. But it does very little for those suffering right now.  

It all comes down to priorities. Is it more important that the centre of Oxford feels linked to the University’s rich history, and celebrates the people who worked hard to make it the place it is, or is it more important that it continues to expand and adapt quickly, even if this means appending names that have little business inside the city outside dinner galas? This is certainly not to discourage charitable giving. Still, there is a certain vanity in philanthropy that does not consider the positive results of their gift a sufficient reward. When naming a building entails trusting that the family name never falls into disrepute, and that the University will be able to handle it if it does, perhaps it would be better not to use billionaires who made their money from pharmaceuticals or private equity as namesakes. 

Hogwarts students run up the Christ Church stairs. Saltburn’s stars roll cigarettes on a Brasenose College quad. And My Oxford Year’s Anna and Jamie wander up to Duke Humphrey’s Library. 

Walking through Oxford, you’d be forgiven for thinking there are two levels of reality. First, the actual, which involves hungover tutorials, looming deadlines, and endless crowds on Cornmarket. Sometimes more prominent is the artificial: an Oxford that is romantic, fantastical, and immaculately lit.

There are two main ways the city is shown on screen: sometimes as a fantasy backdrop for an unrelated story, and sometimes as itself, in a tale recreating the minutiae of the University. Such presentations raise Oxford’s profile, draw visitors to the city, and cut off streets for film crews. When the endeavour disrupts learning and risks misrepresenting Oxford, the question arises – is all this filming a good thing?

A magical city

Oxford’s turn in the Harry Potter franchise has proved one of its most profitable modern features. Hogwarts fans swarm well-known filming sites across colleges, while, on GetYourGuide Harry Potter walks are the main filter option for the city, out-ranking Tolkien, Morse, and the University itself. It’s a strong example of Oxford when filmed in the fantasy genre – sweeping staircases and vaulted ceilings create an arcane, mysterious environment, so alluring it takes on its own character.

Tourists drawn to this version of Oxford appear to view it as their own theme park, replete with backdrops for social media. A Christ Church student told Cherwell that they see “more adults than children” on the College’s busy staircase. Along with Cornmarket Street’s dense concentration of shops selling swords, wands, and University hoodies, they speak to a nostalgic desire to be physically transported to another world.

Other fantastical media, inspired by Oxford but not filmed there, fails to capture the public in the same way. Alice in Wonderland was written by a former Christ Church student, Lewis Carroll, partly influenced by Oxford’s locations, people, and history. It, too, takes place in an otherworldly, exaggerated dreamland, and is, like Harry Potter, a staple of children’s literature. Yet, in the city that helped create the story, tourists don Hogwarts robes, rather than Cheshire Cat ears.

Both franchises draw their popularity from escaping the modern world, but only one provides photo opportunities. A tour guide can point out long-necked brass andirons that may have inspired part of Carroll’s story, but there are no parts of the novel that a tourist can ‘enter’. The ‘real’ Hogwarts, however, is endlessly accessible. While this may explain the sea of dark academia edits set to Lana Del Rey’s ‘Say Yes to Heaven’, this is not the reality of life in Oxford. Fantasy may sell, but it misrepresents the mundane staples of most actual students: Tesco Express, bad signal, and Bridge Thursday.

Oxford as usual?

Other films are set in the ‘actual’ Oxford, but include just as much fiction as fantasy does. Netflix’s My Oxford Year (2025) was a particular target for students for inaccuracies. Based on the novel by Julia Whelan, the film portrays a student enamoured by ‘The Oxford Aesthetic’, until reality takes over. The film’s prominence has caused a surge of Oxford students posting on TikTok about their experiences watching it. Creators participate in “tak[ing] a drink every time they get something wrong about our uni challenge”, and “trying to watch without complaining at every single inaccuracy”.

Cherwell spoke to the author about these inconsistencies. Whelan, who herself studied at Lincoln College in 2006, was initially “inclined to see the negative” of Oxford’s portrayal in films.

“Books seem to get [capturing Oxford] more right, more often, than film, I think. It’s what I attempted to do in writing My Oxford Year. A very gratifying outcome has been the outreach of many Oxonians who read the book and then let me know it captured the essence of the place, that they felt an authentic melancholic nostalgia while reading. This response was such an unexpected boon, because my initial goal was to make people who hadn’t gone to Oxford feel welcome.”  

Since her time at Oxford, she’s changed her perspective on its on-screen portrayals: “The thing I’ve come to accept about media is that it meets people where they are, and you can’t control where that is. Some will only connect on one level (it was so funny/so sad/so romantic!) and others will find complexity and depth where you maybe never even intended it. I don’t think one should set out to “romanticize” (or put another way, flatten it into one dimensionality), but I would push back a little at any implication that all stories must grapple with all sides of a certain thing lest people get the wrong idea about that thing.”

Despite this consideration, Oxford on film seems firmly situated in past incarnations of the University, particularly in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (2023). Fennell depicts an anglophilic Oxford defined by aristocratically chic students, high-class debauchery, and costume parties featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor. The story is set in the early 2000s, but the classism from the characters is positively Victorian – poorer students are intimidated into buying rounds of drinks, and regional accents are relentlessly mocked. Filmed in Brasenose, a college with almost 80% state school students and a strong tradition of outreach to Yorkshire, the representation of Oxford in Saltburn risks preserving stereotypes and undermining the work done by the University to improve access and outreach.  

It should be said that while these stereotypes are considered inaccurate and antiquated by many, there is some truth to these cinematic versions. Students remain attached to Oxford’s mysticisms –  a 2015 referendum voted to keep sub fusc for exams, over 6,400 wishing to continue the tradition. As for the reality of Oxford’s diversity, not only did 2024 see the lowest intake of state school students since 2019, but applications from international students to UK universities have also decreased by 6.75% between 2022 and 2024 – the first and biggest fall since 2012/13.  

Cameras on the quad… and in the library

Conflict between Oxford on screen and Oxford in reality can also be more literal, when filming encroaches on everyday college life. Tensions between students and film crews arose recently after Brasenose College closed its library to accommodate shooting for the forthcoming sequel to My Fault: London. Two quads and the dining hall were overrun by cameras and extras. Disruption clashed with exam season (taking place over 9th week, Trinity term), and prompted questions surrounding the priorities of the College. The Bursar told Cherwell they had “underestimated the impact of filming” in their impact assessment, and apologised to the students affected. 

Colleges commit to accommodating students, academics, and film crews. And camera crews are certainly not absorbing the downsides of this arrangement. Lex Donovan, location manager for Netflix’s My Oxford Year, described working at Magdalen as “very smooth. We shot during the holidays, so fewer students were around”. 

Even after the camera crews have left, disruption continues, as fans flock to filming locations. A Christ Church student told Cherwell: “I was nearly late for my Dean’s Collections because I hadn’t factored in weaving through the tourists”, and that, once, a tourist berated his friend “for walking in front of his photo” while on the way to a class. 

So, what makes colleges open their doors to film crews?

The undoubted publicity of a blockbuster filmed on your front lawn is enticing. Oxford’s 2024 UK admissions statistics somewhat reflect this. Magdalen, where My Oxford Year and much of Saltburn was filmed, received 2,503 applicants, more than double the number received by St Hilda’s, who have not appeared in any recent, well-known media. New College, Brasenose, and Christ Church also dominated domestic applications.

Yet Worcester College was on top with 2,623 domestic applications, despite lacking specific media fame. Balliol also made the top five, despite their relative cinematic insignificance. 

Regardless of whether franchises call them home, the most popular colleges all fit into the idea of the Oxford experience perpetuated by so much of the media filmed in the city. The expectation of palatial gardens and towering spires diminishes the ‘Oxford-ness’ of smaller, more modern colleges like St Peter’s and St Anne’s, which were much lower in the application rankings. The presentation of Oxford onscreen as 100% yellow brick risks narrowing horizons of prospective applicants, and reifying the city as fantastical yet inaccessible.

Beyond cultural capital, the University’s financial motivation for such attention is still unknown. A Freedom of Information Request from Cherwell to Brasenose revealed an annual filming income of £6,170 for 2024, and £43,827 for 2023 (the College declined to share data for the financial year ending in 2025, citing commercial interests). In terms of income, endowments (£644,000), tuition & research (£3.3m), and residential (£4.5m) provided far more to the College in 2024. The tuition fees of just one domestic undergraduate student are 1.5 times the profits from all filming at Brasenose in the same year. 

According to Oxford City Council, the city receives around seven million visitors annually, which generates approximately £780 million per year. Planning for an Oxford ‘tourist tax’ of £2 for overnight visitors seems to be a less-disruptive, passive profit method, as does the £5 congestion charge recently authorised by Oxford City Council, placing a toll on every vehicle passing through certain zones of the city. Still, it is unclear if this income and subsequent cultural relevance outweigh the disruption media production causes to daily student life. Is this side hustle really worth the hassle?

“Trapped in amber”

Oxford has been immortalised from a hundred different angles, yet, as a student, watching the city onscreen provokes a disconnect. Part of this is simply time. Whelan, whose year at Lincoln was 2006, felt that she would be ill-equipped to write about Oxford in 2025, worrying My Oxford Year “will feel trapped in amber sooner rather than later… I thought I’d have a bit more time before someone would look at my character’s Oxford experience the way I looked at Sebastian Flyte’s, but here we are. The future comes for even the most timeless of cities.”

It takes years for someone’s experience of Oxford to make it to the screen, and by that time, the city has moved on. The film-inspired underlay will lag a few years behind, while the enchantment that current students find is ever-changing. These stories try to capture the real magic of the city, whether in the robes of Harry Potter imitating sub fusc, or the streetlamp in Narnia reflecting Radcliffe Square. But they are echoes of actual experiences, animated by other students – walking to Exam Schools with the rest of your subject for prelims, stumbling back from clubs down centuries-old streets, wearing a ballgown on the same quad over which you carry your laundry. They’re the kind of things that can’t be found on a walking tour. 

What remains certain is Oxford’s duality, as a city of both students and screenings. Its popularity is built on nearly 1000 years of stories, fantastical and otherwise, from the people within Oxford and the University. Using the city as set dressing raises funds and college profiles, but also disrupts actual student life, and risks reducing Oxford to a set of stereotypes. Perhaps it is no surprise that the foundation of Oxford, its students, now wish to be the ones calling “CUT!”. 

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Travelling cross-country has never been easy, but UK transport is, predictably, delayed in its arrival to the 21st century. Long journey times and sky-high train fares make travelling difficult, frustrating, and expensive.

With friends spread across the country, students feel this acutely, but not always equally, as regional differences in transport infrastructure inevitably rear their ugly heads. This might be north versus south, or urban versus rural, but the ramifications for friendships, social lives, and wallets remain burdensome. 

The poor state of rail travel in the UK is well-known. However, it remains a key method of transport for students. Flights have limited luggage, burdensome security measures, and an outsized impact on the day. Coaches involve excessively long travel times, at almost double that of  trains. Driving requires a car and a licence, and right now the waiting time for driving tests is prohibitively high. With all these hurdles, it seems that the railways are the only option that works for everyone. But just how and why is it so difficult to get around? How exactly does this impact students? And is this impact equally shared? 

For this article, I conducted a survey on rail travel, asking students about their experiences and thoughts. 20 students responded, with details of the regions they travelled from, and how issues with trains had impacted their university and social lives. I also asked them how they would suggest improving this. 

Higher fees, longer waits 

The most striking concerns were the cost of journeys and the unpredictability of travel times. Firstly: the cost. 80% of respondents to the survey reported having been deterred from making a rail journey due to its price. Railcards do little to make journeys more affordable, with train fares in the UK at nearly four times the equivalent flight price. British commuters spend five times as much of their salary on rail fares as their European counterparts. Privatisation of the railways was supposed to bring greater competition and efficiency, but instead, average fares have increased by nearly 25% since the 1990s. A complex mess of many different profit-seeking companies are left charging different amounts at different times for different tickets. Fares are significantly cheaper if booked well in advance, but student plans are anything but organised, and opportunities are often last-minute. Outrageous fares charged for bookings within a month or fortnight present a serious limitation. 

A second key area of concern is journey times and accessibility, which more than 50% of respondents reported as a deterrent to rail travel. A train from Edinburgh to London can take up to six hours (or longer, if delayed). The journey between Paris and Marseille is 100km longer, but at least three hours shorter. According to the Office of Rail and Roads, between April and June 2025, 31% of train services were delayed, creating unnecessary headaches when trying to get anywhere. Additionally, there was a sharp difference between different regional operators for punctuality. Avanti West Coast and TransPenine Express were the least punctual, with 42% and 30% of their services running late, respectively. The most punctual, with 93% of services running on time, were C2C (which serves East London and Essex) and Greater Anglia (which connects the East of England to London). 

The UK also lags behind in investment into high-speed rail and other rail infrastructure . The UK has only one rail line with an operating speed of more than 125mph: HS1. Attempts to expand this were an unmitigated disaster in HS2. The project intended to create a high-speed link between London and the North. Instead, £81bn later, both the Leeds and Manchester sections have been dropped from the project. Now reaching only Birmingham, there is no clear indication on when it will be completed.

After 14 years, travel from the North to the South has not improved in any meaningful way. The north of England is left without the same transport links that connect London to Birmingham, the capital to the continent, and that criss-cross many other European countries. With the axing of key North-South services, it is now quicker to get from London to Brussels than to Hull. 

This lack of investment and the regional divides it has exacerbated have very real effects on student life, both social and economic, during the vacations and term time. This was reflected in the results of the survey, where students were asked about which region of the UK they lived in, and how they rated the overall performance of the railways. 

Regional vs London experiences: A tale of two trainlines 

On the whole, students rated rail travel poorly, but there was a clear connection between the score given and the student’s home region. On a ten-point scale, students in London and the South-East rated the railways around two points higher on average than their peers elsewhere. Most respondents outside these regions gave scores around 3, while those in London and the South-East hovered around 5. The disparity in connectivity and reliability was borne out in this increased dissatisfaction. Still, travelling is easy for almost nobody – 85% of respondents considered the state of the railways to have negatively impacted their ability to meet up with people and access opportunities. 

The over-representation of the South-East in Oxford admissions exacerbates regional divides in connectivity. According to the 2021 census, the population of London and the South-East made up 30% of the total population of England and Wales. However, students from both regions make up 50% of domestic students at Oxford. As a result, a majority of students are concentrated in a better-connected region. The gravitational pull to the South becomes social, as well as economic and cultural. London becomes the natural destination for meetups. However, the price and difficulty of the journey is not equally shared.  

This was not just a north v south divide – those in rural areas struggled with poor connection, no matter where they were in the country. One respondent, from Devon, found it impossible to visit their friends in Norfolk. The price of the train rendered it impossible, and there was no coach alternative. 

For survey respondents outside London, the concentration of Oxford students around the city was a large concern. Students described the expense and the unreliability of getting to the capital. This unreliability contributed to many also having to purchase accommodation, adding to the cost of train tickets that regularly stretch past £100. Few could manage to get there more than a few times over the vacation, with loneliness following. One respondent from the West Midlands struggled with “being a four hour train away to the function”, particularly when most of the people they knew lived in London. Over 40% of those who considered the railways to have negatively impacted their social lives mentioned London and the difficulty of getting there as a key impediment to seeing friends. 

Those in the South-East and London lamented being deterred from visiting friends, especially those who lived in the North, because of the cost of trains. Journeys closer to them were cheaper, leaving fellow southerners the more natural choice for visits. However, due to the distribution of Oxford students across the UK, and the issues with rail connections outside of London, this was not an option open to many students outside the South-East. The 35 miles from central London to Sevenoaks can be covered in 23 minutes on the train, while the 40 miles between Middlesbrough and Newcastle takes an hour. 

Meeting with an eye on the departures board

Fleeting meetings during the vac can also prove more stressful than during term. One respondent wrote of their difficulty in making “casual meetups happen”. With the amount of planning required, impromptu coffees, walks, or pub trips vanish. The stress of a trip is compounded by the knowledge that this may be the only time you see your friend for six weeks. Sudden delays can ruin meetups which have been long planned and anticipated, causing heartbreak and forcing students to try to find workarounds. During vacations, these feelings are the exact opposite of what students want after an already-exhausting term.

Friendship weren’t the only relationships strained and frustrated by poor connectivity. Romantic relationships and seeing family were also raised as areas of difficulty in the survey, both in vacations and termtime. One student wrote that it’s “too difficult to see my partner” during the vacation, and another in a long distance relationship highlighted how train delays further narrowed their already-limited time together. 

Cost and difficulties in transport meant students missed out on seeing family during term. For those in the North, rural South-West, and other regions of the UK, journeys to Oxford can run above five hours, whether driving or using the train. An overnight stay is often required. The expense spirals, resulting in trips home or visits from family being rationed. Students spoke of missing birthdays and family support, while others could go home every weekend. 

The fast-paced nature of term-time life clashed with the delays of the transport system. The closer to the time a booking is made, the more expensive the ticket, with drastic hikes in the week or fortnight before the journey. As a result, students could not enjoy unexpected opportunities with the support of their family. One respondent spoke of finding out the day before that they would be playing the lead role in a production, but the cost of transport and impossibility of finding a hotel meant none of their family could see them.  

Solutions 

Considering improvements, the survey responses followed two main paths. Namely, nationalisation or an increase in student ticket concessions. “Nationalisation”, “subsidisation”, and “public ownership” were terms that came up often. One response argued that nationalisation would lead to a joined-up system across the network, while another advocated for “total nationalisation” to, in their words, “undo Mrs Thatcher’s crap”. Nationalisation would bring UK rail in line with European countries like Italy, Spain, and Germany. According to a study by Action for Rail, commuters in these counties paid at least five times less for their rail fares. 

The current government seems to agree that nationalisation is the path forward, promising the implementation of a public ownership programme under the umbrella of ‘Great British Railways’. This may be a longer-term solution that shifts the status quo. As it is, the legislation for public ownership has not passed, the transition will be slow, and any future investment into projects like HS2 will have to wait for years until nationalisation is completed. Considering the unpopularity and failures of the current system, a complete rehaul through nationalisation could offer a path to improvement. If properly implemented, it may be a worthwhile effort from the government. How long students will have to wait for such improvement to materialise, however, is impossible to know.

On a more incremental scale, there were proposals for increased ticket concessions, such as a “student specific railcard”. This would be far less invasive and difficult to organise, but how effective it would be is questionable. Railcards for 16-25 year olds already exist. If these aren’t student railcards, then what are? 

Similarly, suggestions for a form of off-peak tickets for students with discounts at the beginning or end of term could work in reducing cost, in addition to having “more student concessions” generally. However, with so much variation in vacations across universities, such a solution seems impractical, and would not deal with isolation during vacations. Scotland has scrapped higher fares for peak travel times, an example which the rest of the UK could then follow. “Free bus travel” was also proposed, whcih would be useful at boosting local connectivity but doesn’t tackle the main structural issue.

Overall, the poor and unequal state of public transport across the country doesn’t just make friendships more difficult and costly during vacations. It also makes travelling home and participating in opportunities more difficult for those who live far from London. Even with the much-vaunted future implementation of the Great British Railways scheme, past precedent doesn’t inspire much hope. A government short on cash, and the cancellation of HS2’s northern section, make it unlikely that the demand for rail travel amongst younger generations will be met. Structural improvements tackling the higher fares and long journey times are therefore essential. But for now, it seems that poor connectivity will continue harming student friendships, relationships and opportunities, disrupting the inclusivity the student community strives for. 

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