Belonging Isn’t Enough: New Findings Show Students Need to Feel They Truly Matter

Ezarik, M. (2026, June 18). Beyond belonging: Do students feel they matter on campus? Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/college-experience/2026/06/18/beyond-belonging-do-students-feel-they-matter

Introduction

Most of us working in student success have spent years talking about belonging—whether students feel like they fit. But a June 2026 Inside Higher Ed Student Voice flash survey pushes that conversation further, asking whether students feel they genuinely matter. A majority of students say there is at least someone at their institution who knows them in a meaningful way, but a quarter aren’t sure if anyone really knows them or say they feel “invisible.” In this piece, Ezarik (2026) explores the distinction between fitting in and being known.

Methods

The Student Voice flash survey was conducted in May 2026, drawing responses from 1,038 two- and four-year students across 203 public and private nonprofit institutions, with data captured by survey partner Generation Lab. The article is a reported feature, not a peer-reviewed study, and supplements quantitative findings with expert commentary from student success scholars.

Results

36 percent of students report that at least several people on campus know them in a way that signals they matter (Inside Higher Ed, 2026). At the other end of the scale, 9 percent report that no one on campus knows them and describe themselves as unseen, while a broader quarter of respondents fall into some version of uncertain or invisible. Roughly 40 percent of four-year students report that at least several people on campus know them in a meaningful way, a gap not mirrored at two-year institutions. On a related question about purpose, nearly two-thirds of students, 32 percent saying “a great deal” and 33 percent saying “somewhat,” report that their college has helped them explore what kind of person they want to be, what gives their life meaning, or how they want to contribute. These figures highlight that mattering, rather than just belonging, is a measurable, institution-level outcome, and right now, too many students are falling through the cracks.

Discussion

Peter Felten, executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University, draws a clear line between belonging and mattering: belonging depends on fitting into an environment, while mattering is rooted in feeling valued, known, and having something to contribute—something theoretically attainable for all students. Felten described results for students whose sense of mattering is tied to just one person as “precarious,” and called the 9 percent who feel wholly unseen “a failure on our part—those of us who teach and work in higher education need to create conditions where all students feel they matter.” Rachel Forsyth of Lund University adds that the findings point toward maximizing student agency and autonomy as core institutional responsibilities.

Implications for Mentoring Programs

The students who feel invisible—that 9 percent—are exactly who mentoring programs exist to reach. A single consistent relationship with a mentor may be the difference between a student who persists and one who quietly disappears. But Felten’s warning about “precarious” mattering—where a student’s sense of worth depends entirely on one person—is a real caution for programs that rely on individual mentor matches without broader community connection. The most effective mentoring models build layered relationships rather than single points of contact, and the four-year/two-year gap in the 40 percent figure suggests that community colleges may need different, less individually dependent strategies for building mattering at scale.

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