University halls for my DS this year

[Lurcherloves]

We went to look at the accommodation yesterday and I had mixed feeling about my DS staying away this coming academic year. He could drive from where we live.
Whilst I would like to experience university life, I’m concerned about winter lock downs and halls would be a pretty grim place to be locked down. The accommodation is not exactly great.
I also have the usual concerns about hedonistic lifestyle etc.
AIBU to dissuade him from staying away for the first year?

Hedonistic lifestyle

All my dc knew where to get drugs / had seen people being offered drugs in pubs and at parties etc in our home City, long before going to University. I'm not sure why you think these things only exist at university .

Why do you think halls would be a grim place to be if there was another lockdown ? My dd was very keen to get back to halls where she was living with a dozen other young people and having a ball, rather than being stuck ni the house with her Mum and Dad. I suspect that applies to most people - it certainly would have been my choice at that age.

Nobody has made personal comments nor being unkind.

Re the loan - get yourself over to the Martin Lewis website and get yourself a real understanding of the loans taken out to fund University and then paid back AS A TAX. It makes no sense to take out the loan for the fees but not for the living expenses. It won't reduce his payments (unless you are expecting him to walk into a job paying £100k and stay at that level for a couple of decades - which isn't the norm for 99.9% of graduates).

So, as virtually everyone has said. Yes, YABU

Halls were BRILLIANT IMO

I was in huge catered uni halls, got to know about 100 people through it and made my closest uni friends there rather than on my course.

[quote Lurcherloves]@Whinge he does have a part time job. He doesn’t want to take the living part of the loan just the loan for the fees[/quote]
He needs to take both parts. I’m sure Martin Lewis will agree. The total amount will make no difference to his monthly repayments I don’t think, he will pay x % on all wages above a certain level. Yes, with a bigger loan you pay it back for longer but the majority of students apparantly won’t pay it all back.

Dd commuted to uni rather than live in halls (her choice, partly due to illness), she’s struggled to make friends. She has made some but I don’t think she’s having the uni experience I had.

I certainly lived in grim accommodation as a student and was so busy having fun can’t say I cared.

I also have the usual concerns about hedonistic lifestyle etc

You need to let him go!

The university I work at is planning - as far as we can given this appalling government's lack of planning - for the return to campus in September to be as much like the before-times as possible. Large lectures are likely to be online (my students certainly seem to prefer that than 9am in a cold lecture theatre!) but seminars, workshops, labs & tutorials will - we hope - be face to face.

If you're concerned about lockdowns, you might ask the University Residence team about whether they're organising freshers into bubbles. This will mean that groups of them can stay socialising, even if there are restrictions or a lockdown.

Again, at my place, students in halls were annoyingly and illegally incorrigible about creating social events. A couple of times, police had to be called, they were being so social! C-19 travelled through the student population via the halls of residence - incidences in Sept 2020 in my quiet country town multiplied ten times in October 2020. My university had to do a lot of PR work with the town & liaison with Public Health to reassure the local authority that C-19 was not being spread beyond the campus ...

Long story short: even through restrictions September to December 2020, and lockdown from January 21, students at my place seemed to enjoy themselves! Certainly when restrictions eased last month, the town centre was pretty much back to normal on a Saturday night!

@Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow

Is your son 18? And he has been with the same girl for four years??? Omg....he needs to stretch his wings!

What do you mean by that?

The 'hedonistic' lifestyle and whether or not young people adopt it is really their responsibility. My DD doesn't drink (her dad was an alcoholic) and doesn't do drugs. She's basically everyone's mum. Not drinking is getting a lot more common.

Normally I'd be in favour of halls. Out of 5 others in my flat, 20+ years later I'm still good friends with one, the others I never really saw after the first year, but it was on campus and an easy base for lectures, the union and meeting others.

I'd have found lockdown and being trapped with 4 of those 5 people very tough.

A relative has been in halls for a 1 year course and had an awful time. Hasn't gelled with his bubble, and management have not asked many questions about who's been involved in bubble breeches and been liberal with warnings that have the potential to affect places on courses. The end result has been spending virtually all his time in a tiny bedroom. Many halls don't have much comfortable communal seating provision either.

Until university is more stable in provision and it's clear that there won't be repeat lockdowns (I'd hope not with the progress on vaccination...), I'd be recommending student houses in the area over halls where there is more freedom to come and go.

Make sure he’s vaxxed. If lockdown is coming (you can always tell!) he drives home.
If he’s positive or a contact it’s only 10 days…

I went to Uni in the same City that I grew up in. I still moved in to halls to get the Uni experience. The people who didn't found it so much harder to make friends and felt a bit left out.

Definitely do halls.