This article presents findings from a PhD pilot study exploring access to higher education for students in a protracted refugee situation in Malaysia. The study seeks to understand access from the students’ perspective through a consideration of the ways in which they understand education and how, in turn, they construct understandings about themselves. The study uses a socio-cultural approach of learner identity to explore the personal meanings students develop, focussing specifically on concepts of internal and external recognition and their interaction. Three students with refugee backgrounds currently enrolled on higher education programmes were interviewed and data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The analysis involved a model of co-production in which participants were consulted regarding the interpretation of the results prior to publication and had the opportunity to contribute to the meanings that emerge. The results show that education is central to students regaining a sense of self after having their learning trajectories abruptly severed upon seeking asylum. Considering processes of internal and external recognition reveals how a new socio-cultural context influences the understandings students develop about themselves in relation to education. This is manifest through their changing subject choice at the tertiary level and a renewed appreciation for the value of education. It also provides a means to understand how concealing their refugee status influences their relationships with other students on campus. These patterns of interaction are shaped through a dual layer of being perceived-to-be-perceived as they interpret others’ actions to suggest they are being recognised as refugee students despite not having revealed their status.