DS kicked out of Uni after 2nd year - what now?

[FeelingAtTheEndOfMyTether]

Totally furious but trying to keep my cool although he is well aware of how disappointed we are in him!

He rang me yesterday after being told apparently that morning, Has been pretending all fine for a while. I even sent him a massive treat parcel thinking he was cramming to finish his project last week!

Apparently he was supposed to resit modules from his 1st year but he hadn’t even done that (he never told us and lied that he’d passed it all), in addition to not completing all his modules this year and only 40% attendance (that’s what he said but probably lower than that!).

DH went to pick him up from his halls tonight and get all his stuff so back at home now with student overdraft maxed out (£1500) and not a penny to his name.

He lived at home in first year and we hoped moving into halls might make him grow up and sort his shit out. Bloody waste of £10k on accommodation!

He didn’t get a part time job at all this year despite promising he would get a job as going into halls as we couldn’t afford to give him extra money but been giving him regular money to buy groceries (maintenance loan covered accommodation and a few hundred a month left over).

So not working or doing his actual Uni work!

He had crap attendance last year as well and I was shocked that he got onto 2nd year. I did tell him last summer to withdraw, take a year out, work and either continue or start again when he’s ready but he insisted he’d work this time.

Uni is out now as won’t get funding for another 3 years and Uni has said he’d have to repeat Yr1.

He didn’t work last year either and has only held part time jobs for a few weeks at a time since leaving school.

He has a extended BTEC in an area which will not directly lead to a job and As and A*s in his GCSEs in Maths and Sciences (he actually ditched his A levels in Maths and 2 Sciences to do the BTEC so has already had an extra year in college), but D in English and didn’t resit it.

Uni course would have given him lots of options in career.

Cannot convey how angry I am at him (and sorry for him) but logically know it’s not the end of the world, glad he’s safely back home and he still has time to turn it around.

I’ve told him he’s got two weeks to get a job or ……….. what? I don’t know as can’t kick him out! His PC is not being set up at home. I’m surprised DH hasn’t taken a hammer to it tonight.

He’s highly intelligent but extremely lazy with a gaming addiction which he has now admitted after many years of arguing about and denying. No drugs, rarely drinks, in the main a good, caring lad but just wants to sit on his arse gaming all night and sleeping all day.

What to do?

So he is smart, good in math but a D in English? Likes gaming?
Get him tested ASAP for a reading disability. My son has dyslexia, +/- ADD (not ADHD, which is easier to see) and was exactly like this. He may not be lazy--he may have trouble reading, and the schools don't pick.it up if the child is smart enough to develop coping mechanisms. He is "addicted" to gaming because it is the one thing he can do well in without much reading. He will resist testing, bc he will see it as another label diagnosing him as a failure, but don't let him. Tell him Jack Whitehall, Tom Cruise, Keira Knightley are all dyslexic.

My son "tutored" gaming and got paid for it while struggling with even basic reading--despite tutoring. He is studying cybersecurity now in university, but has had struggles bc of the reading. And we know his problem. I can't imagine how much of a failure he would feel.if we hadn't got it diagnosed. He also would hide his failures, and hope he would recover. Please, please get him tested.

He’s an adult, it’s none of her business regardless of how much money it’s cost. I don’t know why they gave him him so much after telling him they couldn’t afford it. If his student loan covered his rent with a couple of hundred pounds left each month then I would have expected them to pay their own way.

Do not despair. Have been through that with a bright, but often impossible son. He went through four sixth form colleges, three universities. Lots of other adventures on the way. But he ended up getting a first in a degree. Now stable and happily employed and with a lovely partner. Can’t tell you how often he brought me to tears. But he got there. Keep the faith with him, work it out together. Although gaming all night is not an option!

Now what? Now he gets a job, pays his overdraft, pays rent at home or finds a place to live. The party is over, time for tough love.

On how to follow up on the get a job or else, (else what?), Tell him he has to be out of the house from 8am until 5pm, working hours. Where he goes, what he does, is NOT your problem. This motivates him to get off the couch, and to be out of bed and dressed early enough in the am that he can't stay up all night. He can sit in the park. He can look for a job. This actually worked for a friend's adult son. He found work to fill the time, and it helped him with the depression that spending his days on Dad's couch was feeding.

Did he actually want to go to uni?

Did he actually go into year 2 or was he repeating year 1? Most unis don't offer halls to second years unless they are international students or the uni is a campus one like Keele where there isn't much of an option.

You need him to show you his paperwork. Normally you have assignments / exams and if you fail you have an opportunity to resit, usually with a capped grade.

If you fail the module / unit then you normally have to retake it.

So he has 2 weeks to get a job. In the meantime he needs to look at signing on. He may or may not be entitled to benefits, if his mental health isn't great and his GP will sign him off he might get something but usually you don't until September / October.

If he doesn't get a job then volunteering, cleaning cages at an animal shelter, working in a charity shop or a food bank is an option.

He needs to sort out his English, the good news there is that he can get that for free at an FE college.

I agree with kicking him out 8am to 5pm.

To all the people saying kick him out at 8 -5pm as if you lot would really do that yourselves,so easy to sit behind your little screens pretending to be the tough parent.
So cut the rubbish you are dishing and consider how this poor mum is worried sick for her son and give some actual useful advice.

If he has a gaming problem the National Centre for Gaming Disorders can help. Maybe don't give him the wifi password. Also don't give him any more money, tell him he needs to get a job, any job for now.

Version4needsabitofwork · 04/06/2023 12:58

TheOriginalMrsMoss · 04/06/2023 09:47

I think the Universities are complicit in this. They actually gain additional revenue from this situation but take no responsibility for selecting unsuitable students. I think it's a national scandal that young people are saddled with debt from unfinished, unsuitable or worthless qualifications. It's sickening.

The Universities are a fee driven business machine with little or no concern for suitability at outset or welfare of the students. It's bums on seats and students are fee fodder - they take on all the risk and financial ramifications at an age where many don't fully understand the long term effects.

I’m a lecturer and 100% agree with this.

I'm no longer working in higher education but I'll add my support to these comments. It's a business, driven by the need to claw in the fees and the idea is sold that there's virtually a Uni course for everyone, better jobs at the end of it, life-affirming experience, etc. etc. Schools often promote this too and basically it's hard sell. I don't advocate for one minute that University should be elitist, but the real hard truth (unpalatable as it is to many) is that it isn't simply a rite of passage, nor is it suitable for everyone and to be honest the OP's son doesn't sound like it's the best thing for him. If things change in the future then, sure, a degree could be perfectly possible, but it sounds to me as though this is not currently salvageable.

I totally agree with this. So many schools now encourage students to see university as a default option, and it shouldn't be. It should be for students who want to go there. Not every young person is suited to university education, and schools need to change their narrative to show what other options are available after leaving school.

Unfortunately there are a handful of universities who still dish out unconditional offers like sweeties. I would be interested to know what the drop out rate is for students at these universities

Well it was worse than I thought. He’d hadn’t been on his 2nd year, he’d had to redo his 1st year this year and still didn’t! He hasn’t attended since last October! They’d been contacting him and he’d ignored them.

Email from last week said he’d been withdrawn with effect from last October due to lack of engagement but retrospectively as email notification dated end of May. He was suspended in early May. His tuition fees were paid for the whole year though.

Does this mean he’ll have an overpayment of student finance?

That must have been a difficult conversation. There must be something else going on for him to lie to you.

I hope you can get to the bottom of this and that he can turn his life around.

Oh dear.

Yes, I think he'll have to pay everything back from the start of this academic year, though you may find if he never actually attended, it may never actually have been paid to the university. You need to look at his SF account to clarify that as they usually pay per term, so 3 payments a year directly and on condition that the student has registered and started in the Autumn. He needs to show you.

You do need him to show you all the paperwork as it still sounds a bit strange to me that only now has he been told he's no longer on the course, if he's never attended this year.

You know the worst now. Give him time to accept the fact that he's let himself down (he's not an 18 year old who couldn't cope, he's, what? 21-22? and very probably shouldn't have taken the path he did and didn't take the responsibility necessary to deal with that realisation) stress to him that it's now time for him to decide what he's going to do. Not what he WANTS to do, because you know that; he wants to sit gaming all day and night. He now needs to accept that university right now, maybe not ever, isn't right for him, and as an adult he has to decide in what area he's going to work. In the meantime, any job will keep him busy if he can stick at it.

My cousin at roughly the same age and still living at home was a gamer. Worked in a warehouse, stopped going and just hung out all day with other gamers. Was sacked, never told his parents till he was ill one day and my Uncle rang in sick for him. He's now in his thirties, still doing warehouse work, settled with a family. Plays a bit of FIFA but that's it.

Don't accuse him of letting you down, but don't treat him like a child either. The mistakes were made a long time ago and there's no point rehashing them now.

Look after yourself as well. It must have been a terrible shock for you.

If he was kicked off the course and notified and continued to claim finance / loans etc yes. It’s an overpayment.

My friends child was in exactly the same position, lied and had to pay back student finance. Fortunately it was only year one. My friend was justifiably angry and was coming down hard on him. Eventually she realised he was beating himself up about it and with the mental health issues he had which had caused the disengagement in the first place, meant she needed to take a more sympathetic approach.
Her ds took a year out, was told he needed to work to support himself if he wasn’t studying, but was encouraged to seek counselling and see the gp for anti depressants. He’s now back at uni, doing a completely different course and seems much happier.

Op, I know your ds won’t have the option of redoing uni if they’ve used two years finance, but he won’t be feeling good about himself. I recommend a sympathetic approach saying that there are lots of different roads to take and a few road blocks aren’t the end of the world. Encourage him to get help for himself if needed, and a job to give some structure and routine to his life.

Really sorry that he’s lied, but he must be feeling pretty bad.
I think best thing now would be for him to find a job, earn some money to pay back the loan eventually and also his board.
He will then have space to decide what he really wants to do.

What do you think is behind his repeated problems with school/uni? And why did he end up out of each of his jobs after a short time? Is it anger? Lack of concentration? Doing a bad job/poor results? Not listening? Or something else? Those are the things you need to work through in your head to see if you can see what's going wrong for him time and again.

In the meantime I know you say you "can't" kick him out (and I don't think you should) but realistically I think you need to have that threat to hang over him or he really will stay in his room for the next 40 years. He also sounds like the kind of guy who isn't very good with long-term plans and if you give him a year to sort himself out will sit around for 364.5 days and then send a few emails on the last day.

You could have a "meeting" with him, where you and H sit down and you make a plan. Forget uni - that ship has sailed. It's the start of June now. You could give him a week "off" to just relax and forget about everything. Then you could give him another fortnight to either get into a job, apply for apprenticeships, or make an alternative plan (I wonder if something to do with IT in the forces might work? or at least make him realise that something else is preferable). Make it clear you're not having him live with you over the summer if he's not getting out and doing something productive and/or earning.

He must be 21 or so, so I think it's completely reasonable to have in the back of your mind that he will be moving out in September if these plans don't come to anything, or alternatively if he hasn't sought any help to try and sort his head out. It's not cruelty - he can't rely on you forever and being forced to step up and do something is what he needs.

I know people will think I'm mad suggesting a short "holiday" but he's been lying for such a long time - now the truth (as far as we know) is out he can kind of unclench and really see the impact it's had.

Yes, I agree with telling him to get a job. He could sign up for an agency, they will find work for him. Good idea to motivate him to get a job by stating he must do household chores until he finds work to offset his keep. Also a good idea to box up his computer and send it to a safe place. Don't give him money for nothing. He is too old for pocket money. Force him to sign up for benefits and he won't get much if still living at home.

Lots of really interesting sounding apprenticeships:

https://www.findapprenticeship.service.gov.uk/apprenticeshipsearch

Please look into ADHD!

It sounds exactly like what I did at the same age. I gamed throughout Uni as it was what i felt like doing, I now realise that I was just feeling out of my comfort zone and felt so much happier and calmer cosied up in my room but I made sure I made just enough of my lectures to not get removed from the course.

It might be a controversial view, but taking away his computer might not be a good idea if he does have ADHD. For me, I need a way to decompress when i've had too much stimulation and the computer is a way to do that as it requires just the right amount of concentration, but also stimulation for an ADHD brain (it’s very common). It was my coping mechanism and I realised on my own that it was too much and lost interest after a while too. Now I scroll when I need to switch my brain off from over thinking and replaying situations in my head, but I am aware when I’ve become stuck!

I was described as "Lazy" and at school/college/uni I always felt I didn’t do as well as I should as I was always considered “bright”, both very common descriptions of people with ADHD and very frustrating for me and my loved ones. I'm now 45 and have had a very successful business of my own for the last 24 years, so it’s just finding his niche.

Definitely look at Apprenticeships as I was only motivated on my course when I did my year out in industry and then it clicked how my degree was going to help me in the real world. I definitely work better when I can move about freely. (working from a desk and not being allowed to move away when I feel like I need to is torture). So maybe something where he can be his own boss?

If he is ADHD, then he’ll be given consideration with college and work so he can have a bit more freedom to move around, longer in exams (with breaks), so it’s worth looking at.

ADHD isn't going to be making him repeatedly lie to everyone though is it?

There are strong connections between ADHD and lying if you google it, not least because of impulsivity.

OP I wonder why on earth he didn't do a degree in games design if that is his thing?

If its any consolation my son did a similar thing many years ago, although it was college not uni. I was actually dropping him at the station on my way to work each day. I dont know where he was going! When it came to light we were very cross but he was devastated at letting us down. His elder sister saved the day. She got him into a job fairly quickly. He settled down and when he was 21 went to uni and got a good degree. He is the nicest man you'd meet and has a wife and children now. I think what he did at 18 is just the way he felt then. Honestly OP this will pass and you will forgive him.