This paper focuses on processes of studentification, and explores the link between higher education students and contemporary provincial gentrification. The paper provides two main, interconnected, contributions to advance debates on gentrification. First, the discussion appeals for wider temporal analyses of the lifecourses of gentrifiers to trace the formation and reconfiguration of the cultural and residential predilections of gentrifiers across time and space. With this in mind, it is argued that there is a need to rethink the role of students within the constraints of third-wave gentrification, and to consider how`student experiences' may influence the current and future residential geographies of young gentrifiers within provincial urban locations. Drawing upon recent studies of studentification, it is asserted that this profound expression of urban change is indicative of gentrification. Second, the paper advances Clark's recent call to extend the term gentrification to embrace the wider dominant hallmarks and tendencies of urban transformations. Controversially, in light of a deepening institutionalisation of gentrification, we contend that gentrification can be most effectively employed at a revised conceptual level to act as a referent of the common outcomes of a breadth of processes of change.

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This paper explores the politics of studentifi cation in the UK. It is argued that there is a paradox between New Labour's vision of sustainable communities and the geographical effects of the promotion of higher education-in a similar vein to policies to generate 'positive' gentrifi cation. This contention hinges on the absence of a national policy on the supply of student housing, which dictates how enlarged student populations should be integrated into established communities, or dispersed to other parts of towns and cities. It is asserted that the lack of government policy and the incapacity of institutional actors to intervene or regulate the residential geographies of students are yielding 'unbalanced' populations. This is a factor in the rise of studentifi cation and the fragmentation of established communities. Ironically, some activists argue these 'lost' communities signifi ed lucid exemplars that the sustainable communities policy seeks to engender. These new geographies also obscure the positives of a student population and may foster resentment and confl ict between students and established residents. More specifi cally, the paper illustrates how debates of planning and housing legislation are integral for addressing the challenges of studentifi cation. The paper concludes by considering some possible lessons of studentifi cation for mitigating the negatives of gentrifi cation.

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