To think uni was a way for parents to get their young adult kids to leave home?

Not at all . You couldn't be more wrong in our case .

No, because "in the past" far fewer people went to university. However, most of us wanted to leave home as soon as we could to have our independence and we did this by working.

I think many children wanted to get away from overbearing parents.

It was the opposite for me, uni was an easy way to leave home at 18 without all the motherly tantrums.

It was either uni or run away to join the circus…

It's definitely part of the appeal here. I mean, we'll obviously miss DD immensely when she buggers off in September, but the fact that we get the house to ourselves for the better part of 3 years definitely takes the sting out of how much its going to cost!

You're not doomed to a life of MW if you don't go to uni! There are lots of other career paths available!

I know for my mums generation (reaching 18 at start of 70s), young women from nice middle class families needed an acceptable reason to live away from their parents home before marriage. Girls going into “digs” with a friend but still close to parents home were considered to be of questionable morals. University or other higher education, or a job further away from home were acceptable reasons.
@FancyBiscuitsLevel My elder sisters are a similar generation to your Mum, both born in the early 1950s. Both left school at 16. The eldest started off in an office job in our nearest big town. Because we lived rurally with virtually no public transport this meant her getting lifts and leaving home very early. Eventually, at about 18, she was fed up with the long commute and early starts and announced she had found a bedsit in town My parents were initially very unhappy with the situation, but when they met her landlord and landlady who lived in the same house they calmed down. Very respectable family!

My other sister went to train as a nurse in the same town so had to stay at least during the week. She started off at 16 in a nurses home which was quite strict so they were happier about that.

Both sisters eventually moved in to shared houses and so on and they accepted it by then.

By the time I went to University in 1980 they didn't turn a hair

I started Uni in 1980 and didn't know anyone who lived at home with their parents.

You are right that you didn't need to be fabulously wealthy to not qualify for full grant but IIRC everyone was entitled to a minimum amount however well off. Lots of my friends got less than full and their parents were then expected to make up the difference. I always got a full grant as my parents were on a low income.

I always feel that the experience of living away from home and being semi-independent at 18 was very valuable. By the time I graduated I was ready to go on and make my own way completely independently. If I had stayed at home I am not sure that would have been the case, regardless of qualifications and job prospects.

Why will they be on MW just because they don't go to uni? Odd take.

My DH went to university i the late 70s.
His smother was broken hearted that he had left home. He had 3 siblings.
She kept his bedroom the same for about 20 years.

Well no I doubt Parents would make their kids go to Uni just to get them to leave home. However being the Mother of a 21 and 22 year old - one grad living in London and the other in second year I would much prefer them away and living an independent life at this age than under my roof with no plans and means to be able to leave for the foreseeable. I caveat this by saying I love my DC with all my heart but my life (and theirs) is full of freedom and it is wonderful 😂

My DH went to university i the late 70s.
His smother was broken hearted that he had left home. He had 3 siblings.
She kept his bedroom the same for about 20 years.

My DD is off to uni this year and, much as I love her, I hope this is the beginning of her transition to independence and I am not keen at all for her to live back after uni if it can be avoided. It’s what I did so it feels normal to me. I am considering moving house/ downsizing so they can’t come back.

She’s had a gap year this year and tbh it’s been awkward having another ‘adult’ in the house and figuring out how much I am responsible for her or not/ whether she has to tell me what she’s up to or not/ how to manage shared resources food, bathrooms etc, friends and boyfriend wanting to stay over. It feels like I pay all the bills and do all the work but it’s not my house any longer. I would not want things to carry on like this for another 5 years

Plus in my work I see loads of young people who have ‘failed to launch’ still at home in late 20s/ early 30s with no career or relationship and often just drifting sitting around playing computer games, scrolling on the internet and eating takeaways I’m afraid. It’s not a class or intelligence thing either as many are from middle class fairly well off families and have qualifications. It really seems like quite a common phenomenon these days and I would do anything to avoid my DC going down that road.

With one graduate living at home and another an undergraduate I cannot imagine our home will be an empty nest for many years!
a little light into the future is that DD1 told us the other day she ‘might’ be able to move out next year.

im always kicking my husband (metaphorically) saying we should have had them much earlier.

We’re now firmly into our fifties and still having to think of the ‘kids’!

We mostly went and worked abroad for the summers, often working several jobs to bring home money to see us through part of the next year of university.

I know for my mums generation (reaching 18 at start of 70s), young women from nice middle class families needed an acceptable reason to live away from their parents home before marriage. Girls going into “digs” with a friend but still close to parents home were considered to be of questionable morals. University or other higher education, or a job further away from home were acceptable reasons.

Also for those saying the smaller percentage who went to university- remember those figures are just for university degree courses, if you became a primary school teacher in the late 60s/early 70s, you didn’t get a degree in education, there were two routes, one a degree in a subject of your choice then do a teacher training qualification for a year (similar to now) or you went to teacher training college. Most primary school teachers went via this route so while they went away and did a 3 year course at a higher education college, it didn’t count as going to university.

Similarly, nursing wasn’t a degree then, so going to nursing college wasn’t counted in the figures of those going to university. The grants system was the same. Just when it gets repeated that only 15-20% of boomers went to university, factor in those who got higher education we’d now call a degree.

My son was working doing an apprenticeship in tech and in a lovely house share 10 miles from us 3 weeks before he was18 - had been working from 16 -, no uni involved - his choice and worked well

Ahh! I don’t think my DS had the option of staying in his rental, they seem to rent out from September to June and then get summer renters in or something. I guess it depends on the place.

Ha! Last spring we had magpie/crow wars in trees at the end of our garden. The magpies persevered & rebuilt a nest twice, after the crows wrecked it. An uneasy truce was called.
We saw the fledglings in shrubery still being fed by the parents - but when they disappeared we wondered where to. Google told us the parents chase them out to "large groups of other non breeding youngsters"
"Ahh - just like magpie university then" DD said😁.

I graduated in 1996 and for myself and many of my peers, there was definitely the expectation that we wouldn’t be moving back home. Or if we did, it was for a short period of time. In fact, none of us wanted to.

I moved back in with my parents for 3 weeks as I was waiting for the contract in my new shared house to start. It was a very tough few weeks.

Times are completely different now. My ds is Year 13 and I fully expect that he will return home post uni, if needed. Or we will help him with rent if he decides to move away (as we are not city based). It’s much, much harder to establish yourself now post graduation.

I went to uni in 2008 and yes, definitely an era where it was a right of passage and a way of leaving home which felt safe and supported. Student accommodation usually includes bills and in my day tuition was 3k a year. Schools and colleges pushed university as the route to success.

I have a few friends who did degrees that haven't had any impact on their employability at all and they are in below average wage jobs. One friend probably won't ever hit an income threshold of paying their loan back.

I won't be encouraging my children to go to university unless they have a clear career pathway.

@OriginalUsername2 we ended up not coming home much for breaks! My mum is still very confused about why there’s some unresolved issues from my siblings related to this 😂. Luckily due to age gaps by the time my youngest sibling needed a spare room I’d bought a house so they stayed with me. I used to pay extra to stay in uni accommodation over summer, but after the first year I just stayed in my student rental.

Definitely would have preferred the option to go home!

It is - but I see that as a positive. It's an opportunity for young people to leave home and broaden their horizons in a relatively safe and controlled way. It would be far more economical for me to have my children living at home and working than to be supporting them at University but I don't think that would be good for them. And even in the 80s when I went to University, there may not have been no fees to pay but grants were means tested and relatively few got a full grant. It was a financial strain for my parents for sure. They encouraged me to go but it wasn't because they were getting anything out of me leaving, far from it - my sister who stayed at home until she got married paid them rent, I cost them money into my 20s.

I went in the mid - 80s. Girls grammar school, so many of my friends went as well.
Most of us moved back home when we finished our degrees - may be because we were London based and even in those days, the best jobs were there and accommodation was expensive.
My DS finished his degree in 2024, he's back living with us (again the London problem) and many of his friends are also back home. It's not easy - I'm sure I was far more considerate of my parents when I moved back home!

I’m not the poster you’re addressing, but I was on the sofa if I came home for a visit.