You think the British class system is a bit of a thing from the past, then you start looking into university’s and realise oh here it is, it’s still alive and kicking

[Ohhereiswhereitis]

like it’s just become a bit more hidden

Yet here you are repeating !

Haven't repeated it since that statement have I?

Maybe the issue is more that some people are unable to read and comprehend and that's what holds them back, rather than class!

Rather than actual individual universities being for more privileged students I’d say it’s more a case of some courses are. Vet med, architecture and medicine are long courses and I know some students will be put off by how many years they need to be at university and whether or not their parents can support them for that length of time. Again they’re courses which due to the nature of the workload make it very difficult to work. Dd does architecture and the background of the students is very heavily skewed towards privilege. She’s probably one of the less privileged and it’s like a different world.

How do they separate wealth from class? They often go together

But they also frequently don't. Nowadays you can easily be a wealthy WC person or a low income MC person.

Trades which have traditionally been WC jobs can easily earn more than a white collar MC job. In fact, you only have to look on careers advice posts on here and majority will be saying "learn a trade" over going to uni etc.
The largest house in our village is owned by a builder. He is proudly WC and out earns the doctors in the village.

But the is still a lot more prestige in being a doctor than a builder, no matter who earns more.

Is there? I'm not so sure nowadays, especially amongst young people.

There certainly is for the young people I know. DS is 17, just finished school, and none of his friends are going into the trades. But we are in France where that decision is made at 15/16 with a strict split between academic and vocational paths. It’s very clear here which direction parents feel is the most prestigious - and it’s not the trades / vocational route.

What class do you think go to grammar school? With private schools similarly , if you were saying a public school like Repton or Eton yes that’s probably true.

Mine goes to a grammar which she’s able to do mainly because she’s in the catchment for one! My parents both left school at 15 with no qualifications and lived in council housing , no class advantage here.

id make sure you aren’t passing this attitude onto the teenager, even inadvertently.

I agree with PPs that wealth inequality is the main thing we should be looking at. But cultural capital is real. You're probably going to fit in a lot better at Oxford growing up in a tiny house with parents who are academics than growing up in a big house with parents who don't have GCSEs.

When you arrive at uni no one really knows how much your parents earn but they know immediately if you've got a strong regional accent, have got the "wrong" haircut or don't know which fork to use.

(I hope this doesn't sound disparaging, I'm talking about myself here!)

Talking of subsidised food, Gdd1’s school* choir was singing in Christchurch College Cathedral in Oxford, so while there (along with a lot of Chinese tourists!) we went to look at the magnificent college dining room, which was featured in at least one Harry Potter film.
The day’s menu was displayed just outside, and we were 😱 at the quality of the choice, and the extremely low prices!

*a state primary, just in case anyone’s wondering.

One of the college staff told us that the tourists pay £20 a head for the privilege of entering the beautiful grounds and buildings, and added that they need the money for maintaining it all.

Christchurch is a money pit for upkeep. Beautiful though.

When ds went for interview, the dinner was turbot 😂 Colleges differ, but if you luck out with a good chef then the only downside is returning home in the holidays to Rea from Butterflies’s cooking… (ahem).

I was once sitting in the PhD student office, and a kid came in, followed by mum, a lecturer. The kid was messing around on the chair and mum said "Oh Geoffrey, this is just what it will be like when you do your PhD". The kid was about 7. It hit me then, that some kids grow up in families where they are just naturally guided towards certain careers (medical students for sure), certain schools, certain outcomes - with the money, connections and experience to back them.

I come from a working class background. No one even went to uni and the highest-level career they could imagine being accessible, was teacher. My family told me that if I did a PhD I wouldn't be able to connect with them anymore if I got so posh. They said I was punching above my weight etc.

These things do make a difference to confidence and life outcome. Even if your working class family is super supportive, they don't have the knowledge or connections that can push you ahead. I have seen this both as a student and as a uni admin.

Also the idea that there is no class system in the UK is ridiculous.

These are current Pembroke menus. Servery menu isn’t fancy….sort of school dinner level. Formal hall is fancier, but £11.20 a meal. The food in the servery is really reasonable, cheaper than any cafe by a long way. I think they must do it pretty much at cost price. Rooms start at £113 a week. I dont think you will find accommodation cheaper than Cambridge/Oxford anywhere, especially with the short 8 week terms.

dd applied to Cambridge and I was hoping she’d get in purely because I know how cheap it would be compared to anyone else. Sadly she didn’t make it and is heading off to the vastly expensive Manchester where her rent will be 1k a month! 🙈. Even a room in a student house is around £700 a month not including bills and of course most rental periods are 50 week lets!

Rooms start at £113 a week. I dont think you will find accommodation cheaper than Cambridge/Oxford anywhere, especially with the short 8 week terms

Massively depends on the college though. I just looked up my old college and it's £250/week and that doesn't include food, utilities and the other random bills you have to pay living onsite.

Absolutely. Far worse than in the past with full grants etc. Try qualifying as a doctor without support of middle class well heeled parents. Even the injections your aspiring medical student is told they must get before uni cost a fortune.

Again, you are talking about wealth inequality. Being MC had nothing to do with affording injections, wealth does.

Rooms start at £113 a week. I dont think you will find accommodation cheaper than Cambridge/Oxford anywhere

For real? It’s less than £100 a week for an en-suite room in our city. You can get not so nice rooms for way less than £100 The fact that you view this as a bargain is really strange

Universities are very meritocratic. If anything, lots of young people are actually at a disadvantage from attending private school, because universities are applying quotas for state school pupils.
If a parent supports and encourages a bright child, then the child will be fine. It's about effort, not social class.

Does the £100 a week include bills?

Is it for 50 weeks a year compared to 24?

because £113x 24 is going to be a lot less than £113 x52 or even £113 x40.

I just looked at Teesside which i figured would be as cheap as anywhere. All the halls are 40 weeks let, there is one halls which is £100 a week. The next is £120. Goes up to £175 a week. I actually used to go to Teesside and the £100 a week halls were a dump 30 years ago, they don’t look any better now! 🤣.

It’s very naive IMO to think that ‘class’ doesn’t exist in other countries. It certainly exists in France and the US, and I dare say in umpteen other places. Yanks don’t talk about ‘chavs’, though, they have ‘trailer trash’, and when my Dsis lived near Boston, people would speak very dismissively about ‘people from the projects’, which is their version of council housing.

And French people can be unbelievably snobbish!

The French have racaille which means ‘scum’.

I realised this too when dd went to Warwick. Posh rich students were known to choose the fancier halls.

And again finding internships and on graduation. Those with connections and money had it much easier.

Amol Rajan’s programme on class is a good watch. Mentions how behaviours and accent make a difference.