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?

So I suppose you are putting your children through university AND giving them a house deposit? Congratulations on this gigantic financial sacrifice. You must feel very proud.
My poor poor disadvantaged children for only getting a house deposit after uni, how will they ever cope in life…

I think you need to sit down and work out what you can afford to contribute to your son. If due to your household income he only gets the minimum maintenance loan then it isnt said but parents are expected to make up the shortfall. In addition to this the cost of living has gone up far faster than the maintenance loans have so there is a shortfall there as well.
If you can't afford to make up the shortfall then you need to discuss with him how to make up the money. Does he get a job, defer for a year to work and save up, or alternatively study locally, live out for the first year and then commute?
You really need to have this conversation before applying.

Im a single parent income and about half your income and I still need to make contributions to top up the maintenance. Ive had to sit my son down and explain that I can't make up the shortfall fully so he is going to have to get a job.

Which is why we Londonders had DC go to uni in London.

The requirement for a parental top up of the loan is not new and yet it still catches parents out. DS1 went to Uni in 2021 and DS2 in 2025.

Money Saving Expert has covered this topic in detail for years so I started to save in advance. I do have a high income but I am a planner so I generally prefer to squirrel away smaller amounts over a longer period.

OP if your DS is Yr12 you have 23 months before his first rent payment is due (DS2’s first instalment for halls doesn’t go until this month). Could you start saving now? Effectively you would be spreading the cost over 5 years not 3.

Your son will need a serious adult conversation. Of course he wants to move out, that's part of uni. Let him do that and tell him he will need a job whilst at uni to support his living costs needs and to supplement his student loans. If he says he can't work doe to timetable commitment then he will need a well paid job for during holidays so that he can save money for term time.

If he isn't already competent in cooking, teach him to cook about 5 low cost meals and buy him a student cookbook. Teach him how to use washing machine and iron. He will need the latter if he has a part-time job that requires he look smart

Support his dreams and wishes and let him shoulder his share of the financial consequences. That's the joy of being an adult

No - sorry I was talking only about Oxbridge. I was replying to a comment about how Oxford saying students had to stay actually in Oxford was unfair

You can, depending on where you pick

Maybe the OP will end up in debt if she tops up? Maybe she wants to help Ds with a house deposit after uni
and sees that as a better use of money?

Families on substantially less income manage it, and presumably she is currently feeding and funding her son whilst he is at school. I’m sorry, but I do think if higher earners cannot afford to support their children through HE, they must have over-committed their income elsewhere, be that a large mortgage or a larger than average family. If they just don’t want to, then they are choosing to make things harder for their child than children from other families.

We don’t know what financial commitments OP has though. Perhaps there are multiple siblings, or funding DS will cause debt; maybe their mortgage has just gone up? In theory, it would make sense to fund the boy at a university of his choice, but for what ever reason, OP isn’t keen.

Once again you don't know everyone's circumstances and finances.

What do you expect your son to do when he forms a relationship or meets someone he fancies (hardly unheard of for a student)? Have them join him on the hour commute home and have to meet parents, before they go to bed together? Your son is growing up and needs independence from parents.

Those families on lesser incomes don’t put their kids through university AND THEN give them a house deposit on top for when they finish. Those kids from lesser income tend to rent for many many many years or move back home after university.
Some parents see house deposits as a far better investment for their kids futures. So instead of topping up maintenance loans, those parents would rather encourage their kids to commute to the local universities and then give them a lump sum to buy their first property for when they get a full time job after.

Yes. We're supporting them at Uni and they have well topped up CTF savings as a house deposit. This is normal. We knew we had this responsbiliy for them from before they were conceived, and we budgeted, saved and made financial decisions accordingly. Of course we made sacrifices for that to happen, but we've had 18 years to plan for this. It didn't come as a surprise!

....and it can be pricey but its what you do for your kids. Its expected that parents financially support their kids through Uni. Let him go wherever he wishes and have a proper Uni experience.

I think it depends WHY you are encouraging him to do that.

Also, can't he apply for both Oxford and Cambridge, or does it need to be one or the other?

I may be wrong (good to confirm this) but I think Oxbridge try to discourage term time working. If worried about finances could he either work for a gap year, or work now and save?

The other thing is, if you encourage him to apply to Oxford not Cambridge, and there is more of a chance he'll get in to Cambridge, that could go wrong and may be regrettable.

@MysticalBiscuit you can only apply for Oxford or Cambridge.

True tho that both unis are not keen on term-time working. As many PPs have stated, the way the uni works means you have a very packed programme of face-to-face teaching and may have tutorials late into the evening.

I think it depends where OP is. What unis are commutable? 45 mum train, yes. 2 hours with changes maybe not so. Also the "value" add of going to a university away.

Being London based our dc went to imperial, LSE and UCL etc. had they gotten into Oxbridge there's a value add of going to Oxbridge. Had my DC wanted to go to Nottingham or Bath because "they want to leave London" I would have shut that down because there's no extra value add to attending Bath over the London unis mentioned.

But imagine someone in Leeds gets an offer to read IR at the LSE (one of the best places in the UK for this) there's an extreme value add to move out and go to London.

What are your thoughts so far, OP?

Do you mean the actual courses offered at the London universities, lend themselves to better job prospects, than say Bath or Nottingham ( for example)?

If you are talking from the POV of someone who lives in London, then yes, your children probably can still live at home and have a choice of local universities without ‘settling’ for lower tariff institutions, but not everyone has that choice. For many students, having to live at home because their parents don’t want to support them away from home means limiting their choices, and many people don’t live near any universities.
In the OP’s case, she is trying to make her son choose Oxford over Cambridge, which he prefers, because it suits her, but as already pointed out, commuting isn’t really an option anyway. Not to mention that his chances of getting into either are very slim, so they need to be considering his other choices

I presume the PP means that they won’t improve their prospects by choosing to go to e.g. Nottingham, rather than staying in London and attending a top university there.

Yes. And the academic environment is better. (I'm talking about LSE, imperial, and then after then UCL and kings and QM)

Yes. Thanks for explaining better.

My last dc is at uni atm and lives in halls. She could have commuted but that’s not what she wanted and it’s her life and experience so it was up to her even though it would have saved us a load of money. We did the same with the other 2.
And not the point of the thread, but if any of mine would have had the possibility of getting into Cambridge I’d have taken on another couple of jobs to make it happen for them!