To think DH is wrong to threaten to not speak to DS over university choice

[DPSN]

DS has an offer to study at Cambridge but is considering turning it down to study closer to home at a university with a reputation for his subject which is nowhere near as good as Cambridge's to be near his girlfriend. I think basing a life choice on a current GF is a mistake but he is very stubborn and I cannot force him to go to Cambridge. If she is the love of his life, love will conquer time and distance but if she isn't,I think he will regret turning down Cambridge for her.
I have asked him to weigh up the pros and cons of each option carefully.
DH , on the other hand, has said he will not want to speak to him again if he doesn't go to Cambridge and would want to limit financial support.
I feel I am living in a parallel world with DH thinking he can control DS' s choices with threats and bullying tactics. He says I am too soft for saying ultimately it is DS' s life and choice.
Opinions please.

i am uncomfortable in thinking the money I pay for my daughter as an investment. That implies a return (to me). She would get the return, not me and the last time I looked we weren't the same person!

I noticed at my DDs private school there was a lot of open talk about investment return, even in talks by the headmistress. There was a lot of pushing for children to do things with a good return, medicine being favoured, and sadly some applied to do this to please their parents, not because they wanted to.

At the comp where my other DD is, the pressure on investment is much less, and children seem to have more choice actually.

I agree jizzy. We have younger ones too and are already mentioning other things rather than uni as good alternatives. I don't want them to follow us as a matter of course.

namechange I grew up when university education was available to all in this country. I could never have gone otherwise as my parents were well educated normal people with average salaries. it was a wonderful time when you could choose what subject you liked, drop out, chase the boyfriend/girlfriend and there were no immediate financial consequences. Also the community of landlords did not rip off students for their accommodation and it was assumed students lived on a shoestring. It was good to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge but the newer redbricks were also trendy.

I chose to work hard but those who had a more relaxed time did perfectly well, and many did better!

It is sad that things are less flexible for young people these days but less flexible they are. University education and accommodation is very expensive and Jobs and careers are not so easily made.

Fairenuff, I know that parents aren't obliged to fund. It is something of an unwritten assumption though.

I couldn't have funded my DD. I also think I might still have baulked at it even if money were much less of an object to us than it is.

We still have DD3 who may want to go to uni. She is still just 13, and can't make up her mind yet.

I dont know what I would have done if the DC had wanted to go to a second choice uni for their first degree. Funded them just the same probably on the grounds they probably knew best what would make them happy. Its the post grad degrees I have reservations about.

Did the OP ever come back?

I think she said she and DH were having a day out today.

funny it may have seemed like education was free, I went to uni back in the eighties, but even then there was the parental contribution. I had no grant at all. Every penny came from my parents. I felt guilty, and I hated taking money off them. It made it difficult especially when I didn't want to continue or do that subject!

The funding system is ridiculous and it's logic stands up to no scrutiny at all. Either you're from a family whose income is deemed high enough for them to support you but you have no control over whether do, or you are entitled to a higher loan but have more to pay back, reducing your ability to take on lower paid internships or get on the housing ladder, ensuring your lack of parental income continues to affect your life chances even as an adult

Headofthehive, very much with you.

I regularly mention to my DD3 that there are other perfectly good options apart from uni.

DD1 went to a selective grammar school. She liked the school, but now has some doubts about its mantra that university, particularly Oxbridge, is the be all and end all with no other options ever even countenanced. When it comes up in conversation now she has been known to say "they did a number on us", an opinion she has formed now that she can see her student debt stacking up.

DD2 isn't particularly academic (more practical), so uni not an issue.

DD3 can see all of this. I think she will weigh up many more options.

I was a uni student back in the eighties too.

I got zero grant too and had to rely on my parents. At least there were no sodding tuition fees though. That part was still government funded. If it hadn't been then I highly doubt I could have gone to uni at all.

Thanks for the response funnyperson I have great sympathy for your views.

I grew up when university education was available to all in this country

that is an exceptionally rose tinted view though. The percentage of school leavers heading off to Uni in the year i started, early 80s, was less than 15%. Absolutely right no tuition fees. Hall costs in real terms about half the cost that they are today. Whilst a uni degree was not an automatic passport there were hugely more opportunities in the job market. And even better the other 85% of taxpayers largely funded it.

Very different world today. Although none of that excuses the OP's DH.

My parents wanted me to apply to Cambridge and other unix deemed to be more prestigious then the local one. There were two reasons why I chose the local one:

A) it had a great reputation for my subject
B) I was deeply in love and didn't want to be too far away from him.

I chose to go to the local uni, though I still moved into halls. We are happily married, expecting a baby (in3 weeks! and have been together for 10 years, since I was 16. I also have a good career. DP didn't go to uni (this may have been partly to do with not wanting to be far from me) but he now runs a very successful business. My parents found it totally bizarre that he didn't want to go to uni!

I would have resented my parents for trying to stop me and I absolutely made the right choice. Think carefully if you can see that your son is really in love.

Back to the subject of the thread tho'. There are clearly a lot of details we don't know.

Is it a case that the lower ranked than Cambridge local uni is really low ranked for the course, or just not as highly ranked as Cambridge?

Home town Wetwang local uni = York, home town Worksop local uni = Nottingham, hometown struggling on the Ws now Worcester, local-ish uni = Bristol. None quite Cambridge, but all very well regarded.

Or is the local uni more on the line of Bedford. Perhaps greater reason for concern.

Can only be barely more than 2wks since Cambridge offer received. OPs used the term "considering" as opposed to "has decided". Things may well have been said in the heat of the moment. As the decision does not have to be made until early May there is plenty of time for hopefully rationale reflection.

The GF. Maligned by many; yet we actually know next to nothing about her. Not set on going to Uni. Hardly a crime. For all we know she may have a really good apprenticeship lined up; or have a real entrepreneurial flare and be looking to just get on and start a business.

Lastly a fair few on the thread have an alarming lack of knowledge when it comes to how current student finance actually works. The following is worth a read

www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes

Hope you and your husband had a good day out, OP, and that you have found a way you both agree on to handle this. Good luck to your son!

I've found this thread interesting. No personal experience as my DC are 12 and 10 but I think the OPs DH is being rather hasty.

When does your DS have to firm his choices? I'd advise waiting a bit before doing that. I don't think that not going to Cambridge will automatically ruin his life for ever more tbh but it's hard to deal with the unknowns.

The GF. Maligned by many; yet we actually know next to nothing about her.

I agree. There are some very unpleasant and unnecessary comments about the GF on this thread.

GF is clingy and would love him to stay in the area and move in with her

Well the op told us this. From op's perspective, yes, the GF is limiting his options.

She's only "clingy" in the OP's opinion. This has escalated massively on the thread to calling her a "wet blanket" and "needy", assuming she has "no intention to study" and will "twiddle her thumbs" while the DS is at Cambridge, saying she "sounds like a complete liability", is "incredibly selfish" and does not even have "half a brain", she "sounds awful and is probably dripping poison in his ear about how everyone at Cambridge is stuck up and awful", probably has "nothing in common" with someone who's been offered a place at Cambridge (actually there are plenty of things people can have in common apart from going to university).

Mm but we only ever have the ops perspective.

This, and the other thing op said, never wants to leave hometown or mum does, for most people, add up to needy, wet blanket.

Maybe she just isn't ready for adventure just yet. It doesn't mean she never will be. Plenty of people leave their home town later on instead of when they're 18. And even if she doesn't, that doesn't make her a lesser person. Not everyone is a competitive "Type A" personality who wants to gain achievements to impress others. She sounds like a sensitive person who cares about her family and likes where she lives. She's entitled to this preference and there is more than one way to live a life.

Oh of course, but yeah, the parents of an 18 yr old, probably don't really want them to be super serious about anyone especially someone who want to settle down.

Totally agree tin

Whether or not you leave your hometown has nothing to do with being a wet blanket.

The most successful person from my class at school owns her own company employs lots of people and lives in an enviable large house. She didn't go to uni nor did she leave our hometown!

Thats a particular kind of success though isn't it.

I must say, and I hope no one reading this knows me, at 45, I find the people who have never once left 'home' considerably less interesting than those who have.