Miquel Martínez and Ernest Pons
Professor of Educational Theory, member of the Education in Values and Moral Development Research Group (GREM) at the UB and an EcoViPEU researcher · Associate professor of Economics at the UB and an EcoViPEU researcher
Universities have been the scene of important changes in recent decades. Among other things, these include changes in the cultural capital, skills and competences, as well as the motivations, of new university students. Available data show that a shift is taking place in the social understanding of what it means to "be a university student”. Different ways of understanding what study and involvement at university are also being developed. On the one hand, there is a trend towards new-entry students being increasingly older, each with a different pace of life due to family, social or economic reasons. Students for whom, in many cases, a university education is not their sole interest, either because they have a job to maintain at the same time or because of other activities that require their attention. On the other hand, changes have also been observed in the intensity and models of student commitment.
Although previous initiatives did exist, interest in the living and study conditions of students gathered pace with the setting up of the European Higher Education Area. The final communiqué of the ministerial summit in London in 2007 stated that "higher education should play a strong role in fostering social cohesion, reducing inequalities and raising the level of knowledge, skills and competences in society". It also proposed achieving these objectives by ensuring that students reflect social diversity in all levels of education, including higher education.