I guess you could always use the military method of using a descriptive title and last name (like “Recruit Jones” or “Trainee Smith”) . Multiple same last names? Then just add a number after the name. Such as, Recruit Jones 2 or Trainee Smith 3. In this case, the appropriate term would be student. No confusion as to who’s being addressed and no pronoun implying gender.
In fact, use of third person references might be desirable between the students as well to prevent inadvertent micro aggressions. For example, when asking for a date, the conversation might go thusly: “Student Smith, would you like to go out on a date with me tonight? Why no, Student Jones, I have to study for a physics exam tomorrow.” Or, when commenting on athletic prowess, “that student can certainly run fast.”
Such an approach would not require the savaging of the English language and, more importantly, would not require participating parties to remember the 10+ different pronouns that are currently being proposed in academia.
Look at that monkey run!
(Howard Cosell)
In 1969, the Universitynof Missouri assigned me 154945 and for four years thereafter, that’s how I was known. Let’s just cut to that.