A cursory online scan of the benefits of Higher Education proffers no real surprises – Employment, Higher Earning Potential, Networks, Critical Thinking, Career Advancement, Job Satisfaction, Improved Skills etc. But buried in the list is a Happier Life which seems at odds with most of the business & career focus headers. But it’s a benefit that I have been thinking about for a few days.

I travelled to Nottingham this past weekend for a reunion with friends that I had met at university. A small group of us try meet every December, usually at the British Museum as most of us studied Archaeology but this year we headed back to the Midlands. We booked rooms at a campus hotel using our alumni discount and headed to the pub where we had forged our friendships over a few pints at the pool table. We are now all in our 50’s, with children who have graduated themselves or are at university now and we have plenty of experiences of life’s rich tapestry – love & loss, sickness & health, good times & bad. It was such a lovely few hours – meeting up with some folk that I hadn’t seen for decades. And it was seamless – bear hugs, straight into conversations, health updates and a few tears over the sad loss of one of our gang in 2020. But mostly we laughed. Laughed at ourselves at 19, laughed remembering the 90’s fashions, laughed remembering the hairstyles, laughed at the memories of student houses with mushrooms growing in the carpet, laughed about so many things. I laughed until my eyes were streaming and I couldn’t catch my breath.

Making close friends is not exclusive to HE – and nor is university for everyone – but it was a special thing to experience for me and these friends and the memories that we have, continue to make me happy. My daughter is in her first year at university and I hope that when she’s my age, she’ll meet up with a bunch of people that she met at uni. And they’ll laugh until their sides hurt.

JO REDFERN EVANS

CEO