Salt burn makes me worry for poor kids at ‘posh’ unis.

Saltburn isnt real op.

Honestly, when I found out Saltburn was supposed to be set in the early 2000’s I almost laughed. The depiction of Oxford was ludicrous ( right down to being allowed to smoke in hall). I went to “the other place” in the 1990s from a state school and it was nothing like that and it’s even less so now. Yes there are some very wealthy students there but for the majority, just because they went to private school doesn’t mean their parents were/ are dishing them loads of cash.Some were pretty skint. Generally people rub along and find common ground/make friends from all different backgrounds.

On Saltburn, tbh I found the Oliver thing super confusing as he was actually basically middle class but made up his deprived background to appear edgy ( never quite clear but…)??

my ds is from an independent school but he won't have cash to flash. I'll be a retired single mum and he'll have to work.

Unis attract all sorts and that's one of the good things about it. Kids get to mix with people totally unlike themselves.
He'll be fine especially if he's doing a degree he's committed to, rather than just for the experience.

For me, the big decision was city based or campus because it has a big impact on lifestyle.

Bristol in particular has a huge list of state schools which qualify for contextual offers. That should mean the state schools getting more places.

But you will get private school kids everywhere. Most aren't posh. Parents will have been working flat out to afford fees, with little left for posh cars, holidays etc.
The Public schools - Eton, Marlborough etc will probably be much posher - but in overall terms, the numbers are miniscule.

Good points @Usernamen . I even married one of them 😱😆

No, uni is fine and very mixed everywhere now.

The poor kid at private school is often horrid though. DH was the scholarship kid, he wasn’t from a poor family by any means but it’s quite hard when you live in a small cottage and your best mate has 5 homes and a super yacht.

Saltburn was not a documentary

I’ve never understood why people worry about poor kids being exposed to rich/posh kids.

It was this exposure at my ‘posh’ university that opened my eyes up to a whole new world and spurred me on to pursue a lucrative career and want better for myself. The talk of travel, gap years, living in London etc. made me… move to London, do heaps of travel and take a gap year a bit later in life.

Is it just inverted snobbery / not wanting your children to ditch their roots and aspire for something different?

Those sort of people are a tiny tiny minority at every University!!

You do realise that 70% of students at Oxbridge are state educated so are in the majority.

You do realise that Satburn was a fictional account but if we want to go by Saltburn but if we want to use it as fact shouldn't the posh people be more worried about a sociopath, pyschopath state educated Oliver lying to them and infiltrating their family and killing them? 😂

Universities are big enough that you can find your “group” yes there are the types that spend money like it’s going out of fashion and have the expensive hobbies or clubs but you’re not trapped with them, they can go find what makes them tick.

Ha! It’s a story! Missing from saltburn was the vast swathe of “normal kids” from state / non public private schools who the main character would have got on with fine but that’s not a very exciting film!

Dh went to Cambridge first in his family to stay at school beyond 16. He has the kindest nicest large group of friends from there we still see regularly. The only overt exclusion / grim snobbery was from a minority of alpha type public school boys. That said most of his uni friends went to St Paul’s and they are absolutely lovely.

I think you are projecting too much. Personally, I wouldn't consider Bath or Exeter particularly posh unis (sorry!). I work at one of the more prestigious Russell Group unis (not Oxbridge) and honestly, I wouldn't consider my students to be 'posh' at all. They are really just normal young people from very diverse backgrounds. Yes, they do have more privilege than someone who can't get into uni/can't afford to attend. But it definitely isn't all interrailing and ski holidays and designer clothes. Frankly, I don't think the majority of them went to private school either.

I think the percentage of very well off students ( ie landed gentry, dad owns a helicopter, well known public school) at a lot of top universities is relatively low. I went to a bit of an Oxbridge reject university and although there were quite a few Hooray Henry types I tended to graviate to students with similar middle class, state school backgrounds as myself ( not on purpose but just how it happened) I think a lot of the posh students played down their backgrounds, ie where vague about what school they went to and sort of got found out when they realised that prep or multiple ski holidays weren't part of normal lower middle class or working class life.

I was a working class kid at a posh university and it was completely fine.

Two different things there op! 😄

Firstly, the Saltburn university scenes were set 20 odd years ago, so won't be fully relevant to now.

As it happens, I was a state school kid in a "posh" university at a similar time, high % of private school kids etc. It was fine. I don't know how it is now really. But, there will always be some people who have more money in any given situation in life. I doubt your ds will go the same way as Oliver did... 🤞