To think uni was a way for parents to get their young adult kids to leave home?

[Thegrassroots26]

To think that in the past university, as well as sometimes being good for qualifying and future career, was a way for parents to get their kids to leave the family home at 18/19? Today, with less going and the financial societal and employment pressures, the landscape has changed for parents and their young adult kids immeasurably.

What is horrible about looking favourably on a choice that helps your young adult children find their way to independence in a relatively safe and supported environment?

When I went to University in 1980 I am sure this wasn't actually in my parents mind. Neither of them or my elderly siblings went to University. I am pretty certain my parents looked on it simply as a way for me to get in to a well-paid career. So did I.

My siblings did leave home for work but only, initially, to the nearest town. In fact, when I was compiling my short list of University choices I remember my Mum tentatively asking where the nearest University was that did the subject I wanted and whether I could study it in the city where my eldest sister now lived. Far from wanting me to move out I think she fondly imagined me lodging with big sister during the week and coming home each weekend.

However, like many more before me I suspect, I found that one of the big advantages of University was that chance to grow up and learn to organise my own life. But to do it gradually over 3 to 4 years surrounded by friends. By the time I graduated at 22 I was quite ready to stand on my own two feet and live as an independent adult. Unlike my cousin's of the same age who were still at home living a pretty similar life to what they had at 18.

I have now seen this through a parent's perspective too. DD went to Uni at 18 and I missed her no end but was thrilled for her too. Once she graduated her experience was different I suppose in that she got a job not far from home. I think she did consider renting for a while. However she was keen to save up for her own place so she stayed at home for a while. It worked well because by then I think we genuinely saw her as the grown up she now was and treated her as such. Eventually she bought her own place and moved on but I do still think that 3 years living away from home did a lot for her.

No not at all. It was because Tony Blair convinced everyone that you were a useless worthless twat if you didn't go.
People still used to leave home and get jobs or apprenticeships at an early age.
It's parents that have changed and won't let their kids go or don't give them the skills they need to go. And it's kids that have set up the expectations that they should stay and be looked after, particularly in terms of what they think they deserve. No teenager would be seen dead in a skanky bedsit, they all expect 1 bedroom flats with a view .
The dreadful rental market has exacerbated this.

Not in this family, no. By that I mean both current and previous generations.

However when I was of uni-going age, there was still a huge ‘generation gap’ culturally speaking, so many of us were keen to leave home, whether for uni or not. But it was easier then, rents etc. were much more affordable, and many of us were happy enough to live in cheap, fairly grotty bedsits with shared bathrooms and no central heating, just a gas fire with a meter for feeding it.

Yes I'm sure parents loved spending all their spare cash to help kids survive in university with help with food, bills and loans, kids haven't left home by this point they are at uni so they'll still come home on holidays and perhaps wkends if uni is close enough and they'll probably have to move back in with parents after they graduate until they get a job, most kids don't and never have gone to uni

Not sure about my parents but I definitely saw it as a way to escape my stifling family and home. I stuck a compass in my home town, drew a 100 mile exclusion zone round it and only applied for unis beyond it. With an unreliable car and reluctance to drive distances I knew my parents would never visit that far for a day so no unexpected visits. The relief to forge my own path and be myself on my own terms was enormous. Yes, my living conditions were sometimes horrendous but I never lived at home again.

Parents didn’t, though. There were grants and scholarships, and PT jobs. I left school in 1990 and have four degrees, and neither my parents nor I paid a penny for any of them. I got by on grants and scholarships and worked as much as I could in the long vac (not living at home as there wasn’t room) to bring back some money for the next academic year.

My kids grew up extremely rurally. For them, going off to University in the big cities was a way for them to experience life with public transport and actual shops. I remember my eldest DD (who was in Oxford) ringing me to tell me that there was a 24 hour shop at the end of her road and she could buy milk and bread any time she wanted!

Oddly enough though, most of them came back to live not far from me, although in very small market towns. Only one found the lure of the bright lights so overwhelming that she moved to Australia to live in Melbourne. It seems you can take the person out of the countryside but you can't take the countryside out of the person!

(They did all get good degrees too).

But the grants were still based on parental income. I went in 1986 - I knew one person who got a full grant (he was the richest person I knew but dad was self employed so automatically qualified for the full amount). Everyone else got a partial award and parents were expected to make up the shortfall even then.

Agree. I was one of the least well off in my cohort at University in the 80s and my parents still made a significant contribution. I'd say that people who were on full grant were few and far between. I knew a couple of people from genuinely low income families and a few whose self employed parents must have been cooking the books as their lifestyles were not suggestive of needing a full grant! But most people were being at least partially supported by parents.
I know that for at least the last 50 years (my elder brother went to University in the 70s) funding has been a combination of state and means tested parental contributions. The difference is that in the past the state contribution didn't have to be repaid and now it does. But that, on the whole, affects the students not their parents. Of course there are some parents who pay more than they need to and some who don't make the expected contribution but it was ever thus. I had some friends whose parents funded relatively luxurious lifestyles, some whose parents couldn't or wouldn't make the expected contribution who struggled and the majority were somewhere in between. I'd say it is much the same amongst my DC's cohort now. I'm not being asked to do anything for my DC that my parents didn't do for me.

My parents were too poor to make any contribution. I got an entrance scholarship that coveted the first year’s fees and that needed to be reworn each year, and a partial maintenance grant which I topped up with several PT jobs and things like other minor scholarships (l won one at the end of my first year that was a book token I could use to buy most of my second year books.)

This. I was on full grant. Not that that meant much as it was reducing year on year (mid 90s). My parents had more kids than they could afford and expected me to look after them.

Oh shush, keep the facts out of it....

I couldn’t wait to leave. Luckily the only university which did the exact course I wanted to do was 450 miles away from the cruel, narcissistic bitch that I was forced to live with.

Not really.
When I went to uni in the early 90s I always went back home for the holidays (you had to get out of halls and no-one stayed in their student houses either).

Some of my friends/peers stayed up in our uni city if they had a job/partner there, but the majority went home.

i stayed at home for a year and then moved in with DH (then boyfriend). I would’ve been home longer if I hadn’t met him. Some of my friends didn’t leave home until mid to late 20s, some travelled etc. Really depended on circumstances.

My own DC are early 20s, one has graduated and is living at home. They wanted to stay in their uni city but in the end moved back and is trying to further their career and working retail. The other is finishing uni this summer and will 100% come home. I’m hoping they’ll both be out again in a couple of years!

I was the only girl in my school year who went to uni ( rough area) and I did not want to go! On the day of uni I said I didn’t want to go too. But was told ( maybe out of kindness) to get in the car.
i was rarely home after that as their were severe mental health issues in the family , which increased when I left as I was the ‘ peacemaker. ( I asked to change unis to be nearer home , and the tutor told me , for the first time in my life , it wasnt my job to sort the adult s out - so I stayed).The degree was a professional degree so in the holidays was on placement anyway
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But as soon as I went my bedroom became someones elses. The difference is the parents just did it - didn’t tell me , wheras now it would be mentioned?

As for our dc - ds decided on the day of uni he also wansnt readty ! So we deffered! His degree was definitely less about the degree- but what I call’ a good but expensive growing up ‘ time .