In the past, “student experience” often sounded like a catch-all – a phrase with no clear purpose or outcome. Today, that’s changing. Much like “user experience” (UX) and “customer experience” (CX) transformed the tech and business worlds, the “student experience” (SX) is now taking center stage in education. It’s becoming more than a buzzword: SX is showing up in job titles, organizational charts, and strategic plans. It’s also reshaping the way institutions think about learning, support, and student success.
A Changing Lexicon
Higher education is undergoing a significant transformation in both its language and priorities. The once vague idea of “student experience” has shifted from the margins to the mainstream. It has become a strategic focus on many campuses. New titles, such as vice president of student experience and director of SX are appearing across institutions. The change reflects a growing commitment to intentionally design and manage every step of the student journey.
This shift reflects a trend that has been established in the private sector, where users and customer experience UX and CX are central to success. Businesses learned that each interaction, whether through a website or customer service, shapes perception, and loyalty. Colleges and universities are reaching a similar understanding. Each touch point, such as on boarding and student support, influences engagement and achievement.
The Drivers of the Shift
Why now? Several pressures are converging to make SX a priority:
- Enrollment Declines and Attrition: As institutions grapple with falling enrollment and rising dropout rates, improving the student experience is increasingly seen as a lever for both recruitment and retention.
- The Rise of Online and Hybrid Learning: With the digital classroom here to stay, students expect seamless, well-supported, and user-friendly systems that echo the intuitive experiences they find in apps and services elsewhere.
- Shifting Expectations: Today’s students want convenience, clarity, and personalization – not just in coursework, but in how they find help, schedule appointments, and interact with support services.
In other words, students expect an experience, not just an education.
What It Looks Like in Practice
Some institutions are standing up dedicated Student Experience teams, while others are embedding SX roles into existing departments like academic affairs, student life, or IT. These roles influence areas such as:
- Onboarding and Orientation: Designing more intuitive entry points into campus systems and culture.
- Support Services Access: Ensuring tutoring, advising, and tech support are discoverable, welcoming, and easy to use.
- Digital Interface Design: Working alongside IT and learning technology teams to streamline how students interact with platforms and portals.
These efforts reflect a growing awareness that every student interaction, whether digital or in-person, is part of the learning environment.
Pedagogical Meets Practical
Importantly, SX isn’t just about student satisfaction; it’s about learning itself. A confusing system or disjointed support structure can disrupt momentum, erode confidence, and widen equity gaps. In contrast, a thoughtfully designed student experience can:
- Increase access to timely academic help
- Encourage proactive help-seeking
- Support self-regulated learning
- Reduce friction that disproportionately affects first-generation and underrepresented students
In this sense, SX isn’t separate from pedagogy; it’s the infrastructure that supports it.
The Role of Online Support Platforms
Support platforms play a growing role in shaping SX. NetTutor, for example, allows institutions to tailor the student experience through configurable features like subject collections, branded tiles, and customized support windows that reflect each school’s policies and priorities.
Through the NetTutor Partner Portal, institutions can track when and how students engage with services, identify gaps, and make data-informed decisions to improve visibility and access. These insights allow support to evolve from a static service to a dynamic element of the broader student experience.
As Vincent Forese, president of NetTutor, puts it: “When we talk about the student experience, we’re really talking about designing environments that help students thrive, not just academically, but in how they navigate their education. Our job is to make sure support is intuitive, personalized, and always one click away.”
What’s Next
SX is on track to become a defining differentiator among institutions. As more colleges compete for a smaller, savvier student population, the experience they offer, from the LMS interface to tutoring access, will matter more than ever.
Moving forward, institutions will need tighter collaboration between academic affairs, student support, IT, and third-party providers. The future of education doesn’t just belong to the best curriculum – it belongs to those who design the best experience around it.
