Neoliberal education policies—viewing students’ life as human capital, economic
investment for the labour market and consumer power—may increase students’
workload in higher education. In this mixed methods study, we examined music
students’ experiences of workload in Finland and the United Kingdom in
connection with stress and livelihoods. We used Bayesian mixed effects ordinal
probit regression modeling to estimate effects of countries and livelihoods as
predictors for music students’ experienced workload in relation to their main
subject of study (or principal study) and stress. We analysed music students’
lived experiences of workload to find further predictors for the developmental
work in universities and educational policies. Results indicate that where
neoliberal university culture impacts on music students’ livelihoods alongside
their studies, this is likely to increase stress but not necessarily impact on the
workload associated with their main subject of study. However, stress has a
notable effect on students’ experiences of workload. In order to support music
students’ learning, well-being and future careers, we suggest paying attention to
certain aspects in universities in relation to workload, such as the gap between
well-off students compared to low-income students who need to work as well as
studying, and stress, particularly with female and non-binary gender students.
Furthermore, we propose alternative ways to navigate neoliberal university
culture.
Keywords: higher education; livelihoods; music student; stress; student
experience; student workloa