Saving an association from a select input

I think the other members have already adressed your concern.

I just want to comment on a little detail.

To follow the usual association naming (of course this is not mandatory ^^) I would suggest to rename the has_many name to a plural form such as students instead of student. I think it is more readable.

Ex:

has_many :things, Thing
has_many :criteria, Criterion
has_one :profile, Profile