AIBU for pressuring my son to apply to unis close to home?

[SassyBear2]

My son is very academically capable and wants to study Electrical Engineering. From what he’s researched, Cambridge is better for engineering than Oxford because it’s more hands-on and practical, and the acceptance rate is slightly higher.

Despite this, we’ve been encouraging him to apply to Oxford. We live about an hour away by car, and if he went there he could commute from home, which would reduce how much we need to fund his uni life.

He says he wants to move out for uni because he wants to "experience proper student life" and he believes uni accommodation is an important aspect of that.

We’re also suggesting he look at London unis instead of other options like Warwick, because they’re only about an hour away if there’s no traffic.

AIBU for pressuring him a bit to apply to local unis rather than slightly better ones further away? Is an hour commute really far uni? Also do most students move out for uni or do they stay at home?

Not everyone can fork out £ssss to top up the minimum SFE loan. But if it's Oxbridge it's cheaper due to the shorter term lengths right?

its entirely his choice and any parent who tries to impose their will on their DC is extremely unreasonable
Staying at home is not the same experience and there is no point trying to pretend it is
You do need to figure out how much you can afford to support them ,but this should be at least enough to top them up to the level of the maximum loan

Completely unreasonable.

You want home to be in uni accommodation until the parties die out?

You are over controlling.

It's his life not yours.

From speaking to friends with children at uni, another issue seems to be that student houses require a parent to act as a guarantor - sometimes for the entire property's rent. If parents aren't able to do this, I'm not sure how young adults are supposed to live away from home?

I would love my children to have that incredible university experience, but I think they should be able to access loans themselves if parents are unable or unwilling to pay thousands of pounds a year to support their children.

I agree. And of course it is an hour's commute each way. Two hours a day of travelling plus the potential of being late in the mornings due to traffic (Oxford is horrendous) will take a lot out of him - time far better spent studying and spending time with like-minded individuals. It's not all partying.

I don’t believe you’re allowed to commute to Oxford. Certainly at Cambridge you have/had to live in the town. You say he’d only get a small loan due to your wage - you do realise is the expectation is that you make the difference to the max loan up. And in reality you’d need to stump up more than that due to cost of living. Saying that rent at Cambridge and I’d imagine Oxford is cheaper due to short terms. Food is quite cheap as well.

if you make him apply to Oxford and he doesn’t get in will he always resent you and think if he’d applied to Cambridge he would have had a better chance?

if you make him apply to a London university and he doesn’t enjoy it will he blame you?

This really isn’t worth potentially having a life time of resent from him. Let him make his own choices. I’m sure he can catch a train home when needed. Cambridge or Warwick are all perfectly reachable from the Oxford area.

He needs his independence from you. Why would he want to spend his last year of uni moving back in with mummy and daddy? If you have such a good wage is this about control or are you actually worried about affording this?

We don't actually know whether @SassyBear2 really can't afford to top up her son's student loan or whether she doesn't want to, so most of this is speculation.

We also don't know whether there are other issues that mean staying at home is the best option for him.

I know that many families have students living at home to go to the local university simply becasue they can't afford to move out, which is sad because this may mean that they aren't necessarily at the best university for them.

The fact is that halls fees and subsequent house rentals are becoming so expensive that this will affect where many students choose to go to university and it is a shame that poorer students are being priced out.

As far as I can see it the only options are for the son to get a part time job now and take a gap year or two to save up, for the son to try and get a degree apprenticeship (these are incredibly competitive to get into) or for the OP to subsidise her son.

im from Dublin and most teens there just live at home we’ll into their 20’s as accommodation is expensive. I also have several colleagues (in London) in their mid to late twenties who have not moved out yet due to financial or cultural reasons. Just because all of his friends can afford to move out doesn’t mean he has to.

@AleaEim London and Dublin are a different kettle of fish though. You can't really compare someone living in London at UCL with a student who lives in King's Lynn for example, whose best university for their course might be Loughborough.

Our nearest university is Sheffield, but they don't do the course that DD is doing, and it is still a PITA to commute to with frequent train cancellations..

Whoa you changed your tune half way through this thread from applying close to home so he could commute to then saying you are encouraging him to live at uni for the first year or two? Which is it?
Forget about Oxbridge- sure he can apply but chances of an offer are low so wouldn’t bank on it. However they are usually generous in their financial help and cheaper than many unis.
If your son is only eligible for the minimum loan can you help at all? If not he should take a gap year and save. Then working summer holidays might be enough - he needs to look at uni accommodation as a criteria on where he applies as they vary drastically in cost.
Also he should temper his expectations about the ‘uni experience’. For many it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Even the most outgoing may find it a huge adjustment, they may not find their ‘tribe’ and adulting, even under the security of a university, is a big learning curve. But let him choose where to apply, with the caveat of how much you can afford to contribute to help him narrow down his choices.

Please stop pressuring him! My family did this and the result was that I moved to the furthest away university in England that I could find, because it meant that I rarely had to come home. Interestingly, I also live the furthest away than any of my relatives now, and intend to stay far enough away to avoid the family pressure forever!

There are grants and loans that he could take. Moving away into uni accommodation is like a halfway house to adulthood, as there is still a measure of support, as well as the camaraderie of learning skills with housemates.

I googled. Cambridge big no no. Oxford technically yes

I act as guarantor for my daughter in private halls and it costs me nothing. It’s just if she defaults on her rent, I have to pay it. I have to prove my identity and I get occasional updates to say rent is due, A week or so ago, they emailed me to say her rent was overdue (her loan didn’t arrive until the first day of her term and she told them this in advance but she missed the due date.)

I am really not sure why a parent or parents would be unwilling to support their children through uni. Even in the days before loans, when there were grants for students, it was still means tested. Many people I was at uni with were not entitled to grants and their parents funded their living costs. My own parents had to make a financial contribution to top up my grant and they were relatively low waged. Just worked it out and today, the equivalent amount they gave me would be around £2000 a year. Today, if you truly are on a low wage, your child gets maximum loan.

Today, if you truly are on a low wage, your child gets maximum loan.

Yes but only if your household income is about £25,000. That really is a low wage. Like, minimum wage, and one parent. Not saying it applies to no one (obvs there may be reasons why a parent cannot work FT) but surely not that many ppl. We are both pretty badly aid esp in MN terms (!) and yet DS as I say only gets the minimum.

I’m not defending the OP's stance tho which I think is quite misguided and will not end well.

Just seen that your DS is in year 12. I suggest that he takes advantage of the trips to Oxbridge,which his school will undoubtedly do, to find out if he is a good fit for the self discipline needed at either uni. You will have very little choice yourself in where he eventually goes.

Thanks or all of the replies. A lot of people were pointing out that my households income is an important factor. My households combined income is around 90k. We aren't struggling financially but we're also not well off like some posts claimed.

Taking @clary ’s point the £25k threshold hasn’t changed since…. 2007 / 2008. Equally the upper limit at around £62k has been that way for quite some time now. Whilst tuition fees may have fallen by probably 30% in real terms over the past decade as the vast majority take the tuition fee loan that’s a bit neither here nor there. What is clear is that the core student living cost elements housing, utilities, food have all absolutely not stood still.

now if the op lived in Wales it would be a very different outlook maintenance wise.

Oh come on. The average median household has around £36,700 pa in the uk. You're not going to qualify for help even if the thresholds change. You need to work out how to support your son through uni and he can get a job in the holidays to top up.

Our household income is similar. Only minimum loan. We are already from London so DC only get one year in halls. Rest will be at home.

This. DS can work a job. That’s how many students manage.

Have a look at the northern universities OP? Accommodation maybe cheaper.

Living at home for uni misses the whole point of it IMO. It's just not going to be the same experience at all. If he desperately wanted to stay at home that would be one thing, but the poor kid wants to spread his wings. You should have started saving long ago if you couldn't afford to top him up without doing that, the government assumes that on 90 grand you're definitely going to be able to help out. Oxford and Cambridge don't like students working term time either I don't think.

I stayed at home as well. And while I have no student debt. I also feel like I missed out on a huge amount. I never ‘found my tribe’ at uni. If I had my time again I would go away.

If you can't afford to help him then you need to have a conversation with him about this. The choice of where he goes should be his, but taking a gap year first and saving up to help pay for it might have to be a condition of this.

Living at home limits socialising, and a lot of the university experience consists of building connections that can be useful later in life.

Unless you have a huge mortgage then it looks like you don't want to support your son rather than can't.

Of course it is hard to think about a child going further away, @SassyBear2 - we live in Scotland, and ds1 chose Reading for university - so I do understand how you are feeling. But what mattered was what ds1 wanted, so we gave him all our support. So I’m afraid that, yes, you would be very unreasonable to pressure him to choose a university close to home.

Though unlikely cheaper than either Oxford or Cambridge. Accommodation cost wise they are hard to beat. Though I’ve not looked anecdotally Warwick always sounds reasonable accommodation cost wise.