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

If DC won't get the full loan that's because you can afford to maintain them. You need to budget your other expenses to include the costs if they are over and above your existing commitments to him.
He might be able to get a job for the long summer holidays but I wouldn't recommend a term time job for an Oxbridge student.

YABVU.

Let him go to the best university he can get into and live a full student life with his friends.

He will resent you trying to clip his wings in this way.

DS studying a course at college in a nearby city and living with grandparents during the week then home at weekends. He's still experiencing student life🤷‍♀️

Supporting a child at University is an expensive business these days. People on good salaries are struggling with basic expenses like mortgages etc and then throwing an extra few hundred each month to top up the loans isn't always easy.

My nephew just started at University and on paper his parents' salaries mean he qualifies for the lowest loan amount for maintenance. His first year accommodation is £4k more than the loan so they have to find this on top of his living expenses.

If he wants a practical course, I wouldn’t pick either Oxford or Cambridge. That’s like deciding whether lard or dripping was more slimming.

To all those saying that the OP is selfish - do you know how the loans work now? Parents have to top up a lot, not just living expenses but the rent too.
The cost of living crisis has hit student accommodation just as much as it has hit everything else!
It's perfectly possible to have good jobs but struggle to find the extra each month to support a child at University & it's not always feasible for a student to work during term time. Plus holiday jobs are few & far between these days.

Oxford or Cambridge are your best bet, OP. Accommodation is cheaper and students get Uni accommodation for 3 years & only pay for term time which makes a big difference. The downside is students have to move out at the end of every term during their whole degree.
They also provide lots of bursaries for students who might need extra financial support and the thresholds to qualify are quite high depending on the college etc.

As others have said, commuting isn't a good idea and Oxbridge won't let you.
I live in London and several of my kids friends opted to live at home & go to London Universities for financial reasons but that's slightly different to proper commuting.
Good luck!

So .... he won't get much financial help cos you are well off .... but you don't want to fork out? Have I got that right?
I don't know what to say really .... that seems pretty mean to me.

Plenty of people already telling the OP how very unreasonable she is for manifold reasons- but just wanted to express my horror at the very idea of a parent encouraging a young and naive person - one with no experience of life or real understanding of what is being proposed - to commute.

I spent decades of my life commuting - sometimes a commute of the length the OP describes, sometimes much longer. I regret it deeply.

It’s not just about the wasted time of journey itself. Commuting has a devastating effect on physical and mental health, on stress levels & - hugely important in this case - ability to engage in a social life and to maintain intimate relationships. (Notable that the OP seems not to consider this possibility.) Social life really matters for a young person. Hugely! So does being able to maintain intimate relationships.

I appreciate some may find commuting easier than I did- but the point is that you don’t know how you will cope with it until you try it. So it is a dreadful idea to arrange a life (in the OP’s scenario, to turn down college accommodation or the opportunity of a house share with friends) on the assumption you can cope with it for any length of time at all. (Plus even if you can cope with it in the sense of surviving the physical effects & stress, its effect on social life & relationships will be negative.)

To encourage a young person down this route is so very cruel. I am really amazed parents can be so disregarding of a child’s welfare, and very sorry for the young man who is receiving such destructive advice from parents, without the life experience he needs to shield him from it. I hope he is allowed to have a normal student experience - that Oxford’s regulations will shield him from this appalling idea- and in future is given the opportunity to make his own choices.

OP, explore funding options yourself by contacting the unis. I was offered 'hidden grants' that I didn't know were there and were poorly advertised- like hardship loans. Really made a difference. I also worked every Summer and during a gap year. I had no parent financial support at all. My friends all had jobs e.g. a few hours tutoring each week, to help pay for uni. We lived in a house share (5 of us) which made rent much cheaper.

I know things are harder for students now, but there are things that can be done. What I absolutely wouldn't do is ask him to commute each way, especially with such intense study at an Oxbridge uni. It is exhausting and can leave you feel isolated and overwhelmed (and mental health issues at uni are becoming increasingly more common). I hope you find a solution but I can't stress enough the benefits your son will have living at uni rather than commuting.

YABVVVVU

Moving away for uni was honestly so amazing, it was the most fun years of my life. If I could go back to any time it would be then. Back off and let him go.

Agree. It gets more the more friends they make!

I assume this is not a genuine post and is rage bait? Of course if he wants to move out he should. The only students who stay at home are those that want to - and the vast majority of students don’t want to. The whole point of university is the university experience.

I’m guessing the OP did not go to Uni herself or she would understand how unreasonable she is being.

perhaps he should do an apprenticeship instead?

yanbu if you cant afford it

As PP have said, he probably wouldn’t even be allowed to commute to either Oxford or Cambridge. And if you’re concerned about the finances of going to uni, London is really not a good idea! There are plenty of places that are both good for engineering and reasonably priced.

My DC are both at a uni of their choice 3hr and 1.5hr away. No way would they be able to commute but they both love being with their friends, living independently and both uni cities have so much more to offer than the place DH and I live (although there’s a big uni here too).

DS1’s private accomm, in a very popular for tourist city, costs more than our mortgage was! Accomm is a dump so it’s really annoying to spend so much.

Despite the maintenance loans they receive, we are still forking out £800/month to top up the payments. Both are struggling to find work. Although they do dip in to their savings (18yrs worth of Xmas and birthday money). Very few of their friends have managed to find jobs to fund their fees.

I don’t like them living so far away but they enjoy their courses and the prospects in their respective fields of study are much better in their uni cities. We hope that giving them this opportunity will pay off and they’ll get jobs they love.

My DD turned up at home at quarter past one last night because her university accommodation had no water. She lives half an hour away and is in her third year, there was never any question of her living at home. Being independent has been so good for her.

This post can’t be real! OP doesn’t want her son to party and doesn’t wave to top up
his finance. Great mother there!

I don’t think yabu .

I stayed at home and commuted an hour into uni: my reasoning was I didn’t expect my mum and dad to pay, I wanted to reduce debt and I also have a much younger sibling and wanted to be around for them.

I didn’t feel like I missed out. In fact it was nice to have my loans paid off by early 30s. I moved out at 24 once I’d started my career.

This.

@SassyBear2 step back. Let him leave.. you’re being a tad controlling here.

I would be encouraging him to apply for the best universities for his course, regardless of location.

As others have said, Oxford wouldn't allow such a long commute.

Socially he would miss out if he commuted and for London universities, you would need to consider the cost of commuting into London (unless you actually live there), probably at least 4 times a week as engineering courses tend to have a lot of contact hours, and often at peak times.

We are about an hour from London by train and a season ticket travelling at peak times would cost us £50 per week more than the average cost of a room in halls at Warwick Uni. If he would actually live in London for a year or two and then commute, the total cost for 3 or 4 years would be far in excess of living somewhere cheaper than London for his entire course as accommodation in London is very expensive.

You're definitely unreasonable here. Oxbridge is all about college life. I don't even know if you're allowed to not live in college accommodation as an undergrad, at least in the first year, and usually there is college accommodation provided throughout.
Your son would miss out on the Oxbridge experience if he was commuting home every day. There are formal halls and the college bar and societies all happening in the evening.
University is time to let him fly the nest. Terms are short so he'll be back every 3 months anyway.