Recommendations for equitable student support during disruptions to the higher education sector: Lessons from COVID-19

Disasters disproportionately impact marginalised groups. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption in higher education students’ experiences. We sought to understand how twelve universities across three countries endeavoured to support students to retain access to learning through COVID-19, particularly those from minoritised and intersectional backgrounds. We were guided by the following overarching questions: What strategies did universities employ to support students during COVID-19 and what was the uptake of these strategies by students?; How did students perceive the usefulness of institutional COVID-19 support initiatives?; and How did students experience the impacts of COVID-19 in 2020? To deepen our learning, points of comparison were made between countries, institution types, and student cohorts from minoritised, intersectional, and non-minoritised backgrounds.