In 2020, the Education and Workforce Committee for the 52nd Parliament opened an inquiry into student accommodation because it wanted to learn more about students' experiences and recommend what could be done to improve the systems and processes associated with student accommodation. The terms of reference for the inquiry, while we centred them around the student experience, were kept broad to allow the committee to investigate the range of issues and concerns raised through submissions, but also as a means of starting a dialogue between all the parties and how we could raise the standard of student accommodation in New Zealand. We wanted to learn more about how student accommodation providers were performing in regards to pastoral care, transparency of decision making, and cultural competency, as well as the role of those servicing student accommodation, particularly for residential assistants (RAs), who tend to live on site and provide ongoing pastoral care to their residents.