Lone parents as higher education students

This paper focuses on how the personal experience of lone parents who become students informs their learning and experience of university life. Longitudinal qualitative research with a sample of 79 lone parents studying at a range of UK higher education institutions (HEIs)demonstrates the powerful impact personal experience has upon successful and satisfying higher education completion for this group of learners. The research found personal experience to impact upon university life across a range of causes and effects. Work on the conflicting demands of the family and university as ‘greedy institutions’, each making insatiable claims on individual members’ time and energies, is particularly relevant (Acker, 1980; Edwards, 1993). The paper explores the relevance of lone parents’ wider lives in particular their experience of housing, mental health, social inclusion/isolation, family ties, friendships, employment, on-line social spaces and leisure time.