When a student can’t submit their essay because the household’s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty.
Digital poverty describes a cluster of overlapping disadvantages: lack of access to devices, unreliable or unaffordable internet connectivity, and insufficient digital skills to make meaningful use of online resources even when access exists.
According to a 2023 report, between 13 and 19 million people over the age of 16 in the UK are experiencing this in some form.
Researchers describe digital poverty as operating across three levels. These are poor access to digital technologies, poor digital literacy and skills, and a reduced ability to convert digital access into real-world benefits, such as securing a job, managing finances or navigating health systems. Each level compounds the next.
In higher education, all three levels matter. There’s an assumption that young people are naturally tech-savvy because they grew up with Instagram and TikTok. But a student who owns a smartphone but has never used a university’s virtual learning environment, an online library database or a collaborative document platform is not digitally “ready” for modern degree study, regardless of how fluent they might be on social media.
Yet many universities continue to design their courses, and assess their students, as if reliable broadband and a personal laptop are simply a given. They are not.
Witnessing digital poverty
COVID-19 forced higher education online almost overnight. The effect on students without adequate digital access was stark. An Office for Students survey of 1,416 students during lockdown found that 52% said their learning had been affected by slow or unreliable internet, 71% reported lacking a quiet study space, and 18% were affected by not having access to a suitable device at all.
At the Open University, where many students come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and have non-standard entry qualifications, the picture was even more complex. Students sharing a single device with four household members. Adults studying on their children’s tablets. People trying to write assignments on smartphones. This might be practical for browsing, but not for sustained academic work.
The pandemic made these realities visible. But the inequalities that produced them had been building for years – rooted in income inequality, regional infrastructure gaps and a cost-of-living crisis that pushed broadband off the list of things people could afford.
Some students are hit harder than others
The evidence consistently shows that digital poverty does not affect everyone equally.
Research carried out in the UK found that Black, Asian and minority ethnic students were significantly more likely to face digital barriers than their white peers. Among Black, African and Caribbean students surveyed, 43% reported poor wifi as a problem during online learning, compared to 35% of white students. More than one-third struggled with mobile data costs. Nearly one in five had no safe, private space to work.
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Digital exclusion doesn’t just make learning harder – it reduces engagement and accelerates dropout. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, those classed as Neet (not in education, employment or training), and those enrolled in access-level qualifications such as foundation degrees are particularly vulnerable.
Data from Open University access modules shows that of students who visited the module website fewer than 20 times, only seven out of 289 submitted their final assessment. Of those who visited over 100 times, 342 out of 356 did. Digital engagement and academic success are deeply intertwined.
A human rights issue
There is a growing international consensus that internet access is not a luxury but a right. Mexico recognised it as a constitutional right in 2013. Finland enshrined it in law as far back as 2010. In 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council called on all states to accelerate efforts to bridge digital divides. The UK is a signatory to that resolution.
Framing digital access as a human right matters because it changes what we think is required of institutions and governments. It is not enough to treat digital poverty as an unfortunate circumstance that universities might occasionally help students navigate. It needs to be understood as a structural injustice that demands a structural response.
Institutions are not powerless here. Lending laptops and wifi hotspots, offering hardship grants that cover broadband costs, integrating digital literacy training into curricula rather than bolting it on as an afterthought. These measures make a real difference to real students.
But universities also need to audit their own assumptions. Designing courses that require simultaneous video streaming, real-time collaboration tools and high-bandwidth content without considering students on capped mobile data plans is not neutral. It is, in effect, a design choice that advantages the already advantaged.
The most important shift, though, is cultural. Digital poverty needs to stop being treated as a personal failing or a logistical inconvenience and start being treated as what it is: a systemic barrier to equal participation in education. Until it is, the sector’s commitments to widening access will ring hollow for the students who need them most.
