THE last eight years have seen a significant change in the size and composition of the UK higher education student population. Framed by inconsistent government policy, tight funding arrangements (for both students and institutions) and a widening participation agenda encouraging more diversity than ever before, the complexity, pace and magnitude of this change has challenged the integrity of every higher education institution (HEI).

As the sector strives to meet the government's current inclusion target of 50 per cent of all 18–30-year-olds entering higher education by 2010, and influenced by the recent publication of a White Paper, HEIs are today having to embrace marketing and create a more student-focused culture. In welcoming this as an opportunity, Liverpool Hope has built on its mission to educate the individual in mind, body and spirit and has developed a new mechanism for delivering support services that underpin the student experience and complement the courses on offer. The flexibility and responsiveness of this innovation in service provision has become an integral part of Hope's strategy to strengthen the foundation from which all students can flourish as individuals within mass higher education.

THE RECENT HISTORY OF STUDENT SUPPORT

The recent history of pastoral support at Hope is characterised by a change from one particular model of support to another. The imperative for this change was a mixture of internal and external factors but was driven by Hope's distinctive mission and ethos. Central to this is the aim to value each student as an individual. The student body is more diverse academically, socially and culturally. Students now have a wider variety of expectations of higher education and there is a broader range of aspirations after graduation. The challenge is therefore to adopt a model of student support that is responsive to students’ needs, flexible in its use of space, time and location, and that meets the increasingly high expectations of fee-paying students.

One of the traditional characteristics of British higher education has been the provision of student support services, and this is especially strong in the church colleges. The tradition may have developed because HEIs stood in loco parentis until the age of majority was reduced from 21 to 18 in the 1960s, and were therefore responsible for the students’ moral and physical well-being as well as their academic development.