Voices and experiences: Introduction

Contemporary Australian neoliberal universities are not composed of homogenous student bodies, but rather diverse student identities with compounding pressures impacting their ability to access and succeed in their education. If, as the Australian Universities Accord envisions, 80% of working-age Australians are to be university educated by 2050, institutions must plan and design for all students (as Sarah Bendall argues), not merely those defined as disadvantaged within rigid parameters. Section 2, Voices and experiences, [ACSES Equity Insights 2026] centres on lived experience insights from across the sector with an undercurrent of financial, structural, and technological barriers to equitable access to education.