This book documents the key characteristics of the English student (and graduate) experience in the context of wider social, economic, political, and cultural changes over time. It explores the role of the academic within this context, and the ways in which the relationship between academic and student is affected by changing perceptions of the role and meaning of higher education. Above all, it explores what these changes mean for the new generation with regard to their transition to adulthood: how the young people of today shape, and are shaped by, the context of 21st century higher education.