You can receive a lot of pushback when you raise the sorts of issues covered in this report. Very many large listed companies would shy away from them and let others take the lead. But Unite Students has never done that, and I pay tribute to their boldness in commissioning this important, and at times unsettling, report from which others can now learn. They are right to have done so because of the intrinsic importance of the issues covered but also because we are at an important moment in public debate, when real change is possible. For example, the Office for Students is putting a new level of pressure on universities to reduce their non-continuation rates and improve the labour market success of their graduates. This report will help them do that. We are also at a tipping point in terms of student accommodation because of the sharp increase in the proportion of students who now spend some time in privately-owned Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA). Now that such PBSA is the norm, providers of this sort of accommodation, like Unite Students, have added responsibility to ensure their residents meet their full potential. This does not mean that universities can leave any worries about accommodation to others. As well as still providing hundreds of thousands of student beds themselves, they get the blame when things go wrong at any type of accommodation used by their own students. 7 The solutions to the challenges posed in this report are therefore likely to come only from partnership working. Despite the challenging findings, this report is not an attack on our sector. Like Universities UK’s own report, it shows how the sector can better deliver for all students and become a beacon by which other parts of our society can judge their own actions. Just imagine how much more successful and harmonious our country would be today if racial prejudice had never been allowed to hold back individual talent. Living Black at University 7 Living Black at University 6 Nick Hillman Director HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute) 7 Sarah Jones and Martin Blakey, Student Accommodation: The Facts , HEPI Analytical Paper 2, August 2020 The impact of racism on the non-academic aspects of student life has been largely ignored. That is why this new report is so vitally important. “