Roles, Groups or What? We use Drupal as the basis for a student information website. We have 3 intakes of students a year and I would like to be able to allocate students various rights based on roles, primarily if they are


a current student, 
an applying student,
or an alumni.


But I would also like to be able to identify them by what class they did. 


Should I create a new role for each new intake? 
Should I use groups?
Is there an alternative method I should use?
Best and simple way is to assigning Roles. 

Users, roles and permissions