Salt burn makes me worry for poor kids at ‘posh’ unis.

[Pippetypoppity]

Im beginning to think certain Universities have much wealthier students on average and a kid from a poorer background would have a hard time perhaps ? Oliver in Saltburn was almost ostracised. Dc is looking at Exeter and Bath as favs. Not going to have any of the spending money, nice things from home the private school kids there will have I’m guessing. Will they have a hard time and be excluded in any way do you think. Horrible to think that as pretty shy and socially awkward anyway 🥹.

I went to uni around the same time and the two factions kept themselves to themselves bar the odd one who tried to run with the posh crowd and got themselves into huge debt doing it (as opposed to the rest of us with our medium-sized debt).

I'd check out what the situation is with housing by looking at unofficial sources and if there's a divide there. Where I studied posh kids were in flats and normal kids in halls so it was easier to find a tribe of similar people in one or the other. However, uni is about learning to rub along with all sorts of people and be independent as well as book learning.

I was a working class kid at university. All the working class kids were trying to pretend they were used to eating out or bigging up their holidays to Spain and all the rich, privately educated kids were trying to act like they always had beans on toast and downplaying their trips to the Bahamas.

Can you imagine if someone posted this the other way around?
They would quite rightly get destroyed

Saltburn made me very glad mine decided against applying to Oxbridge ;)

Although I did go to a RG uni and met all sorts of people there. Nice people from posh backgrounds. Wankers from less posh ones. And vice versa. I was not posh. For others to decide if I was a wanker.

I agree and abhor this stay in your lane mentality, we should all want our kids to learn to be comfortable across all demographics. And should not visit our own fears or social anxieties on them.

I opened this thread expecting it to be about some university kid who had come home with physical evidence of some dangerous and painful hazing ritual...

I agree - exposure to more privileged people can inspire and motivate people from less privileged backgrounds in many, many, ways.

As long as they're smart and confident enough not to be in awe or try to imitate them. To be their own person. This skill, you can help instil in your child.

I was brought up in dilapidated council flat in a tower-block in an inner city with multiple drug den flats in it. It was quite normal in the morning on the way to school to find others had relieved themselves in various ways in the lift. It was also normal to find you had been burgled in broad daylight for drug money.

School was full of gangsters, drugs and alcohol, students who had been expelled from other schools, and teachers who couldn’t get jobs in other schools… the whole school was on special measures.

I was also raised by a high school dropout teenaged single mum, we were in benefits the entire time I was growing up. Eating out was a foreign concept, holidays were for other people, a fish and chips takeaway or Domino’s pizza was an extreme and rare luxury - even then only a couple of slices.

No one even spoke to me at home, let alone that I was familiar with polite conversation. Sometimes my mother spoke with her hands in the form of blows as a means of conveying “important” messages.

Somehow, miraculously, I was accepted into a top university.

I was a fish out of water, didn’t know what the hell was going on around me.
It was a difficult time. Still, I wouldn’t change it. It was good to be exposed to a whole new life and set of people.

The most important thing to set your child off to university with is a good self esteem and confidence… and that comes from loving them and being a good teacher of the world for them from day one.

I had neither of those things and it was crippling. I was able to teach myself over time. Now I am comfortable in any crowd. Wouldn’t wish that upbringing on any child.

Don’t worry, university is an excellent and necessary coming of age time for most young students, all of it generally good and teaching important life skills quite apart from the degree subject.

My firmly MC (3rd generation Oxbridge, DPs and DGPs all professionals) DD has had vile comments from a tiny number of students at her Cambridge college. Her offences are being from a comp, and having a Midlands accent. It was the same for me 35 years ago.

The difference is that now the other students of all backgrounds were absolutely appalled and made it clear that such behaviour was unacceptable. In my day such prejudiced attitudes were much more widespread and freely shared including by staff - it made the newspapers .

It isn't changing fast enough (state education statistics are misleading because selective grammars have nothing in common with comprehensive schools) but it is changing.

Which Bath? Uni or Spa?

I was a state school kid at a posh uni. There was definitely segregation but there were enough other young people similar to myself that I made friends. We found each other.

A long way back I had school friends who went to Oxford from our shitty deprived village, who quit or transferred having been made to feel like stupid worthless oiks (the expression one of them used)

That was a long time ago.

Plenty have gone since - and friends of my DC have as well - and been perfectly happy and settled.

The two at Durham say the large number of southern posh kids can be an issue - mocking Northern WC kids’ accents, mocking lack of money or travel - but that “you get wankers everywhere so I’m not letting them put me off.”

To those decrying people being wary of “posh” - there’s definitely a confidence (and in many cases arrogance?), entitlement and obliviousness to many social hardships from young people from privileged backgrounds. They have life experiences a mile away from those who have never been able to travel, go to the theatre, see gigs, own much, or have free time because of working 4 shifts around school.

That can cause a lot of obstacles for lower WC kids.

Some colleges will let you stay on in the vac — mine did. And there are always storage facilities, so you can box up your belongings out of term time. I wore the same serviceable dress to the three May balls I attended. I didn’t ’fit In’ in the sense that there were no other WC students at my college, but it stretched me and showed me new worlds, I did make friends, and actually, I’d had considerably more life experience than the richer people.

I watched Godzilla and am now scared of going to New York.

I don't remember reading anywhere that Saltburn was based on real-life events.

This is not my daughter’s experience at all. Groups were mixed. Sure there is arseholes where ever we go. Some hating the posh kids some hating the working class but it is not the norm any more.

I went to Exeter. It was not remotely ‘posh’.

This is exactly how social mobility has been crushed in this country for 100s of years. It needs to stop.

My teen Dd is state educated but socialises
in the private school set the only awful comments have come from boys at a top name public school 🙄. The public school girls and kids from normal private schools are not like that. So it’s naive to say this never happens now.

Who said it never happens? It happens, and it happens in reverse. Just not the norm.

I would say don’t worry.
Our daughter went to a prestigious London uni and met some fab people. There were a LOT of very well-off international students e.g. mummy and daddy paid their rents on flats in Covent Garden when they were at university, they got allowances etc. My daughter had to work throughout uni, while many others didn’t have to.
So there was financial disparity but she made some great, probably lifelong, friends and graduated last year.
the uppity kids were the ones from academic families where mum and dad were professors at top unis. She still made friends with them though :)
btw neither of us went to uni so i can totally understand. I turned down the oxbridge entrance exam myself in the 80s because we weren’t well off enough and I didn’t think I’d fit in.

IME lots of students (even from "posh" backgrounds) won't have lots of money, holidays etc. Generally (and very sadly) what stands out more is a thick regional accent, certain fashion styles, attitudes etc rather than money. There might be a bit of "which school did you attend" in freshers, but most "posh kids" won't be trying to make anyone feel less than (always some horrible, as there will be from all echelons).
Generally, would say don't let it put you off. There are all sorts at all universities. Be yourself + you'll find your people (who may end up being from a different social class anyway!)

Okay. I work at Oxford University, have done for 10 years. 1) trust me, it's nothing like the film. I actually found the film annoyingly inaccurate. 2) honestly, it's like any other university, just with higher entry grades and a few odd traditions. Oxford tries really hard to shake the idea that it's just for posh rich kids (and there are some of those, but it's certainly not the majority). Also, I work with students on a daily basis and I think with everyone going a bit green and a bit more community-minded, the idea of getting in because you were rich is a bit embarrassing these days and doesn't mean you're going to be the cool kid, at all.

Posh people aren’t all awful! My kids are privileged and go to private school, and I’d hate to think people don’t want to go to uni with them in case they weren’t inclusive. If I said I didn’t want my children to go to uni with less well-off people I would (rightly!) be torn to shreds on here!

Yes, you may come across people who boast about the privileged life they have, but don’t lump everyone into one group of snobs.