SO, according to my boomer mum, sending a child through uni these days is the same as it was in the 90s

[PotteringAboutIn]

Because apparently they didn't have the wages back then

Ffs
Drives me nuts

What when uni was free, accommodation wasn't anywhere near as expensive and you even got a grant

Boomers hate it when they're called Boomers. I think it's their way of expressing remorse for ruining everything for everyone.

I went to uni in the 90s. I got a grant, all fees paid, housing benefit for my flat, signed on the dole during the holidays, banks were throwing money at us to open an account there, consequently I had massive overdrafts at every high bank which I never paid off and no one cared… going to uni in the 90s was fucking brilliant 🤩

Full time staff nurse annual salary 1974 was
£1, 338
I qualified in 1977 and it had gone up a couple of hundred £. It didn't go very far even then.

My mum is leading edge of the baby boomers.

she grew up not in wartime but with rationing and her main memories of her childhood are of being cold and hungry.

her childhood sounds awful (and her parents were genuinely trying to give her a good life there just wasn’t much food around and they didn’t have much money - grandad wasn’t demobilised until a few years after the war).

I have had tough times in my life (health issues) but not cold and hunger like she did.

i wouldn’t choose her life.

Shes not a Boomer. If you're going to be derogatory, at least get your facts right

Because it's not all about you?

I remember paying £40 a week! Late 90s...

Is this 4000 pounds a year or a month?

My parents were both retired by 53 and have had 30 years on final salary pensions. They think we are better off than they were at our age. We have one DC who will hopefully start uni in 2 years so will need to keep working till they are finished. Luckily fees where we live are lower at about 4,500 pounds a year for a normal degree.

Tuition was free, but I ended up not going because the grant didn't cover the universty accomodation costs, and my parents couldn't help at all. 1987. I had worked in a supermarket throughout my A levels, but was worried I couldn't work enough to cover living costs, as well as atudying.

Signing on during uni holidays had stopped by the 1990s in the UK. I went in 1989 and it had just been completely withdrawn as an option.

What a load of shite.

She'll be looking at your lifestyle, compared to their 1 wage household, and thinking you really don't have a clue.

I paid £250 a month from 1996-1998 but I went to one of the universities with higher than average rent. I was lucky that I didn’t have to pay over the summer though so that was only for nine months. My mum worked two jobs to get me and my siblings through university in the 90s. The parental contribution was a similar proportion to now but there were no tuition fees so it was a lower amount to find.

I had two children at university last year and we were expected to contribute £11,331 in total for their living costs which has been very challenging. One has finished now so it will only be £5,782 next year.

Life was cheaper and more simple in many ways, but you had to work harder for your degree. No personal pcs, no google, no recorded lectures, students drank lager, no ensuites.

Under similar conditions I don’t feel I had to work that hard, university had an astonishing amount of leisure time, and I got a First and walked into my choice of job without much thought going into it.

I feel exhausted reading the CVs of our grads today. I do the assessment centres to help select our interns & grads and am grateful that I never had to jump the hoops that they do!

Mine was £160 a week!

Really? mine was £55 a week and I went 2007-2010.

@PotteringAboutIn I recommend you watch Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch. The generation before have always thought they had it worse. I hope it gives you a laugh at least.

As an aside, there seems to be a consensus that the baby boom generation all got together and decided, “How can we make everything good for ourselves, and really shit for our descendants?” As if they had that level of control over what went on economically. I prefer to think that the vast majority of ordinary people are and were doing the best they can for their families with whatever fate dishes out. I guess that generation were the lucky ones, but I don’t see it as their fault, and I don’t blame them for taking advantage of the hand fate dealt them.
Edited to say I understand it would be nice if they acknowledged that times are hard for many right now.

Yeah some people are just out of touch with current society. My mum seemed outraged that i don’t automatically plan to make my kids sit the 11+ for grammar school. I had to explain to her that it isn’t just a casual test everyone takes like they did in the 60s/70s and that kids are tutored for like 2 years beforehand for a massively competitive test.

I just brush it off and don’t take advice from her with things like that. It doesn’t bother me.

Your ageism is disgraceful. And considering all the benefits, loans and grants today, and the fact that today almost anyone can attend uni where as back then uni was only for the top layer of society or the very, very, very brightest, she is right. She is wise, listen to and learn from her.

If she's in her 80's then she's not a "boomer", but I guess "according to my silent generation mum...." wouldn't have fitted your "boomer bashing" narrative would it?

It may not have been meant as an insult originally but the term is used that way now. Words don't stay fixed in their meaning and I agree that OP has used "boomer" as an insult as almost everyone does who uses that word.

Yet you have just used boomer in an offensive way in your title…

I am a so called boomer, I’m 63 and in full time work. I know life is hard for you, but please don’t tell us life has always been easy for the whole boomer generation. It’s not been a bloody fair ride for most of us, either.

Dislike for a whole group in society is never a good look.

Some 'boomers' weren't even born until the 60s, so how they can be teenagers or adults then, I've no idea. How can people born in 1946 have the same 'unique experience' as someone born in 1964?

It's such a lazy, inaccurate and nonsensical way to label people.