Over the last decade, UK universities have expanded recruitment targets and a rapidly increasing number of students residing in the towns and cities that host these institutions is proving critical. Various resulting mutations of local social, economic and cultural ecologies form a process known as studentification. This term, describing the specific changes that students have on the area around them, builds on a tradition of friction between those involved with embedded higher education institutions and the people living within the same locale. Historically, the blame for reported anti-social attitudes and behaviour has commonly been cited as being directed at one demographic by the other, without taking into account structures which might underwrite and profit from the continuation of this conflict.

 

Expanding on commercial incentives and social implications of Higher Education, Manifesto for a Studentopia positions heavily marketised tuition, aggressive proliferation of PBSAs, a highly commoditised new student lifestyle, fostered behaviour, local adaptations and resulting friction within a lucrative and cyclical initiative. Picturing structures which might underwrite, profit-from and ensure a continued tension between town-and-gown, this ongoing project looks to invite reflection upon specific talking points and speculate towards their consequences.