Today, most members of the Hall are not monks, but lay undergraduates and graduates. The hall, which is still owned by Ampleforth Abbey, has a Benedictine and Roman Catholic ethos. However, there is no requirement that members of the hall should be Catholics.

St Benet's was the last constituent body of the University of Oxford admitting men alone to read for undergraduate and graduate degrees. It was also the last single-sex college or hall in the University after St Hilda's College, the last all-women's college in Oxford, admitted men in 2008. In November 2013, the hall formally announced its intention to admit women graduate students within one year and women undergraduates as soon as additional housing facilities were obtained. Women were admitted as graduate students in October 2014 and as undergraduates in October 2016. Thus, 2016 is the year that all constituent colleges and halls of the University became fully co-educational.