AIBU for pressuring my son to apply to unis close to home?

Oh come on. The average median household has around £36,700 pa in the uk. You're not going to qualify for help even if the thresholds change. You need to work out how to support your son through uni and he can get a job in the holidays to top up.

Taking @clary ’s point the £25k threshold hasn’t changed since…. 2007 / 2008. Equally the upper limit at around £62k has been that way for quite some time now. Whilst tuition fees may have fallen by probably 30% in real terms over the past decade as the vast majority take the tuition fee loan that’s a bit neither here nor there. What is clear is that the core student living cost elements housing, utilities, food have all absolutely not stood still.

now if the op lived in Wales it would be a very different outlook maintenance wise.

Just seen that your DS is in year 12. I suggest that he takes advantage of the trips to Oxbridge,which his school will undoubtedly do, to find out if he is a good fit for the self discipline needed at either uni. You will have very little choice yourself in where he eventually goes.

Today, if you truly are on a low wage, your child gets maximum loan.

Yes but only if your household income is about £25,000. That really is a low wage. Like, minimum wage, and one parent. Not saying it applies to no one (obvs there may be reasons why a parent cannot work FT) but surely not that many ppl. We are both pretty badly aid esp in MN terms (!) and yet DS as I say only gets the minimum.

I’m not defending the OP's stance tho which I think is quite misguided and will not end well.

I act as guarantor for my daughter in private halls and it costs me nothing. It’s just if she defaults on her rent, I have to pay it. I have to prove my identity and I get occasional updates to say rent is due, A week or so ago, they emailed me to say her rent was overdue (her loan didn’t arrive until the first day of her term and she told them this in advance but she missed the due date.)

I am really not sure why a parent or parents would be unwilling to support their children through uni. Even in the days before loans, when there were grants for students, it was still means tested. Many people I was at uni with were not entitled to grants and their parents funded their living costs. My own parents had to make a financial contribution to top up my grant and they were relatively low waged. Just worked it out and today, the equivalent amount they gave me would be around £2000 a year. Today, if you truly are on a low wage, your child gets maximum loan.

I googled. Cambridge big no no. Oxford technically yes

Please stop pressuring him! My family did this and the result was that I moved to the furthest away university in England that I could find, because it meant that I rarely had to come home. Interestingly, I also live the furthest away than any of my relatives now, and intend to stay far enough away to avoid the family pressure forever!

There are grants and loans that he could take. Moving away into uni accommodation is like a halfway house to adulthood, as there is still a measure of support, as well as the camaraderie of learning skills with housemates.

Whoa you changed your tune half way through this thread from applying close to home so he could commute to then saying you are encouraging him to live at uni for the first year or two? Which is it?
Forget about Oxbridge- sure he can apply but chances of an offer are low so wouldn’t bank on it. However they are usually generous in their financial help and cheaper than many unis.
If your son is only eligible for the minimum loan can you help at all? If not he should take a gap year and save. Then working summer holidays might be enough - he needs to look at uni accommodation as a criteria on where he applies as they vary drastically in cost.
Also he should temper his expectations about the ‘uni experience’. For many it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Even the most outgoing may find it a huge adjustment, they may not find their ‘tribe’ and adulting, even under the security of a university, is a big learning curve. But let him choose where to apply, with the caveat of how much you can afford to contribute to help him narrow down his choices.

We don't actually know whether @SassyBear2 really can't afford to top up her son's student loan or whether she doesn't want to, so most of this is speculation.

We also don't know whether there are other issues that mean staying at home is the best option for him.

I know that many families have students living at home to go to the local university simply becasue they can't afford to move out, which is sad because this may mean that they aren't necessarily at the best university for them.

The fact is that halls fees and subsequent house rentals are becoming so expensive that this will affect where many students choose to go to university and it is a shame that poorer students are being priced out.

As far as I can see it the only options are for the son to get a part time job now and take a gap year or two to save up, for the son to try and get a degree apprenticeship (these are incredibly competitive to get into) or for the OP to subsidise her son.

im from Dublin and most teens there just live at home we’ll into their 20’s as accommodation is expensive. I also have several colleagues (in London) in their mid to late twenties who have not moved out yet due to financial or cultural reasons. Just because all of his friends can afford to move out doesn’t mean he has to.

@AleaEim London and Dublin are a different kettle of fish though. You can't really compare someone living in London at UCL with a student who lives in King's Lynn for example, whose best university for their course might be Loughborough.

Our nearest university is Sheffield, but they don't do the course that DD is doing, and it is still a PITA to commute to with frequent train cancellations..

I don’t believe you’re allowed to commute to Oxford. Certainly at Cambridge you have/had to live in the town. You say he’d only get a small loan due to your wage - you do realise is the expectation is that you make the difference to the max loan up. And in reality you’d need to stump up more than that due to cost of living. Saying that rent at Cambridge and I’d imagine Oxford is cheaper due to short terms. Food is quite cheap as well.

if you make him apply to Oxford and he doesn’t get in will he always resent you and think if he’d applied to Cambridge he would have had a better chance?

if you make him apply to a London university and he doesn’t enjoy it will he blame you?

This really isn’t worth potentially having a life time of resent from him. Let him make his own choices. I’m sure he can catch a train home when needed. Cambridge or Warwick are all perfectly reachable from the Oxford area.

He needs his independence from you. Why would he want to spend his last year of uni moving back in with mummy and daddy? If you have such a good wage is this about control or are you actually worried about affording this?

I agree. And of course it is an hour's commute each way. Two hours a day of travelling plus the potential of being late in the mornings due to traffic (Oxford is horrendous) will take a lot out of him - time far better spent studying and spending time with like-minded individuals. It's not all partying.

From speaking to friends with children at uni, another issue seems to be that student houses require a parent to act as a guarantor - sometimes for the entire property's rent. If parents aren't able to do this, I'm not sure how young adults are supposed to live away from home?

I would love my children to have that incredible university experience, but I think they should be able to access loans themselves if parents are unable or unwilling to pay thousands of pounds a year to support their children.

Completely unreasonable.

You want home to be in uni accommodation until the parties die out?

You are over controlling.

It's his life not yours.

its entirely his choice and any parent who tries to impose their will on their DC is extremely unreasonable
Staying at home is not the same experience and there is no point trying to pretend it is
You do need to figure out how much you can afford to support them ,but this should be at least enough to top them up to the level of the maximum loan

Not everyone can fork out £ssss to top up the minimum SFE loan. But if it's Oxbridge it's cheaper due to the shorter term lengths right?

I have to say your stance is selfish and shortsighted. To have Oxford or Cambridge uni on your CV, even in today's world, is a huge start in a working life. Do you not want the best for your child?

I think you really do need to have a re-think, youre not management material.

I appreciate you'll be under greater financial pressure, but he wants to live an independent life as soon as possible, not having his mum hovering above him, extending teen parenting into adulthood.

He just won't get a normal young person's experience if he has to commute an hour home, especially if he's having to rely on public transport. Every time he'll need to stay over at a friend, you'll no doubt have divulge information to you about who that friend is and other details, and I think you know that. Don't guilt trip him into going to Oxford.

I went to uni 5 hours away!!!

Don’t add to his stress. Accept the Uni he chooses himself .

I’ve not often seen a thread more unreasonable. You need to let him go - it’s entirely unreasonable to expect a student to commute an hour to uni, even more so at Oxbridge. We were in fact required to be resident at the college (or living in the city) during term time. I would not have been allowed to carry on my degree doing what you are suggesting. But even more unreasonable is the idea that you have any right to put pressure on him about these choices. Poor kid.

I teach undergraduates at a university in the north and quite a few are commuters because it's cheaper overall. However, they're still often travelling from the next city over and are often affected by train strikes, traffic, etc. Their attendance and experience does suffer. I think your DS would have a similar problem. One hour with no traffic is a bit optimistic. There will frequently be traffic, particularly if he has a lot of 9ams.

He's right about experiencing proper student life. Going away to uni is a valuable experience - you learn so much more about yourself and develop your independence. BUT it's not as easy to afford as it was, so I understand your hesitancy. How much of a detailed budget have you put together? This will show you and him how much it really costs to live at uni versus live at home. He'll know if he needs to get a job immediately, how many hours he'll need to work alongside his studies, and how much his loan will cover. This is all important information to know upfront before he makes his choice.

Ultimately he should choose the course which appeals to him most and offers the best experience. Wherever that is. If he chooses a uni he doesn't actually want to go to for the sake of saving some money, he might really regret that.

There do seem to be more Uni students living at home now than there used to be, I have seen friends DC choose to stay at home to save money. Some also commute in for 1-2 days when they have lectures and stay in a Premier Inn etc as that is cheaper than halls.

DD is looking at Uni's for next year. She could commute to Exeter Uni, but the last bus is 6, the last train is 9. She has no social life now and I don't want that continue for another 3-4 years after college. Her course hours are also 30-35 a week and she doesn't need a 3 hour round trip daily commute on top of that.

DD does understand that finances are limited and she will need to get a job while at Uni.

DD also wants to live somewhere else. She doesn't drink and isn't a party animal, but just wants something different. Having said that, she is looking at more rural Uni's rather than city ones, but they all have good facilities on site and good bus links to the nearby town.

commuting an hour to uni every day is unreasonable, especially as it’s Oxford where his workload will be high and living in college is very much part of the experience. Also if he gets in to Cambridge I think you do everything you can to get him there tbh.
Distance is a factor though, we will probably encourage DD to apply to places that are an easy train journey/drive away so it’s more practical. Also possibly to put our local uni down as the insurance choice.
If she had her heart set on somewhere further afield I wouldn’t stand in her way though.

All of which makes my final point even more relevant!