Why didn't your child apply to Oxford or Cambridge?

[ZeroSomeGameThingy]

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/27/oxbridge-state-school-numbers-falling

Given that most people who apply will not get in - there's no shame in an unsuccessful application. So what are the real reasons for this apparent reluctance?

Could someone with university aged children please explain how (in the absence of a trust fund) they fund their living costs.

Starlight's post is the most distressing thing I've read here all day but I don't actually kmow how to answer it. (And I need to because I'm constantly railing against this govenment's stinking plot to make all but their own children attend the uni up the road...)

I turned down my place at Oxford for two reasons:

1. During my interview the guy kept making 'Beowulf to Virginia Woolf' jokes, and the overview of the course he gave made it seem very restrictive - most of the other universities I had looked at had a much wider range of elective module options (and Warwick had the RSC connection).

2. I couldn't see myself being happy living there. I didn't feel comfortable on campus in the way I did on other visits/interviews. It felt very much like a separate community to the rest of the city, and I worried that it would get claustrophobic.

I'd like two of DS's ex-housemates at Durham to read this thread. They both rejected offers from Cambridge because they couldn't think of a reason for going there ahead of Durham. They are both from the North and could get home in two hours from Durham rather than five from Cambridge. Durham is staggeringly beautiful. Durham has a collegiate system. Their courses are higher rated at Durham than at Cambridge. And Newcastle's on the doorstep for a lively night out.

Zerosum
They get student loans. They work in the holidays.
The children I mentioned at 14:53 do not have parents who can help out.
All have thrived at Oxford.
Children of other friends are thriving at their universities without bucket loads of parental help.

THey will be paying student loans graduate tax of 9% for most of their working lives though.

Sorry ... slow, interrupted typing.

Shooting I want to agree with you entirely - but perhaps you didn't grow up hearing words like "community" and "role models" (misguidedly) tossed in your general direction. I'm too old to have suffered it myself but I cringe for every child photographed for the "outreach" page of my theatre programme. Yes to cultural capital and critical mass - I just worry that children who might, from outside, look like part of a "community" might not be being seen as individuals.

(I know I'm not making sense - but we all want to follow our own path. No-one wants to be part of a mass project.)

TalkinPeace Break - it - down. So I (and Starlight) can understand.

What she said is they would not be able to go because we do not LIVE in Oxford or Cambridge and you just cannot borrow enough to live in either of those places, nor get a job that pays anything decent

I want her children to be able to go! What forms do they fill in, who do they apply to for money? How could she be sure they wouldn't starve to death on the street?

Dispute greatly your original statement of

"there is no shame in not getting in"

Maybe shame is the wrong word. It's a stonking huge kick in the teeth getting a rejection from any of your uni application places, and Oxbridge more so it seems ( as you will have been pre selected, pretested and got through all that, to be rejected after interview). Up until the past year or so the rejections from oxford came handily on 23/12 to ruin Xmas!

Yeah to improving resilience etc but really it's a huge thing to apply, to think you might be good enough and then to be told you aren't. My oxbridge applicant and mates in the following year groups are helped by the fact it is a school that sends to Oxbridge often ish. Therefore there are many " rejects" who support each other!

Not something I'll encourage the youngest to do.

THe "reject" is top of the year at a russell group uni with a funded masters lined up for sept, and a paper accepted for publication. So yup maybe not right for Oxbridge but certainly not "substandard" as they felt at the time.

ZeroSome
www.ucas.com/how-it-all-works/student-finance/undergraduate-student-finance#maintenanceloans
www.gov.uk/student-finance/loans-and-grants
www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes

www.moneysupermarket.com/money/the-true-cost-of-going-to-university-infographic.aspx

Oxbridge isn't included here but it has been worked out that the average estimated minimum cost of going to university is over £75k.

In reality the student only has to find around £10k Net minimum per year that they can't get from loans.

Oxbridge accommodation is cheap compared to many other universities and they have a bigger pot of bursaries (which top up loans). See e.g.

www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/cambridgebursary/

And you'd have to make an assumption that there are lucky enough to be able to GET the cheaper accommodation, live close enough to an aldi, have friends who don't leave them out because they can't afford the fees for whatever clubs they want to do or have to spend all their time working.

And you also have to assume that they START university with a set of pans, an iron, a computer etc.

Zero - the way funding for university works is that you have a loan for fees that is paid directly to the university and then there is a separate loan for living costs. There is a fixed amount that everyone can borrow for living costs but there is an extra amount that is means tested. If you have a low family income you can borrow the extra amount and will probably be eligible for additional financial help in the form of grants or bursarys. If you have a higher family income you can't borrow the extra so your parents are expected to make up the shortfall.

Starlight
If you start Uni with those negative assumptions you'll fulfil them.
Regret what you HAVE done, not what you have not.

Its the same as "you can never afford to have children" until you do.

Students from low-income households are entitled to grants as well as loans and Oxford and Cambridge are both pretty generous with their support for those students - amongst the most generous in the UK, I believe. The problem is worst for those whose household income is just above the threshold but even there Oxford and Cambridge have short terms and the housing costs are lower than they are at most other Russell Group universities. My son is at Oxford now and will have heavily subsidised accommodation for all three years. If he wanted to, he could be eating in college which is also pretty cheap, but the house he is in now has excellent cooking facilities so he mostly eats there.

You get a 100% loan for tuition. You then get maintenance loans:

Living at home Up to £4,418
Living away from home, outside London Up to £5,555
Living away from home, in London Up to £7,751
You spend a year of a UK course studying abroad Up to £6,600

These can be topped up by work in the vacations (or in term time).

What if you earn over the bursary eligibility criteria amount? That doesn't make you suddenly able to afford to fund your kids, especially if they all hit university ages at the same time/have debts/have social circumstances that prevent you from moving to a place with a lower cost of living/are funding therapy for your disabled child/paying for parents care home/have 10 children etc etc.

StarlightMcKenzie Is there really nothing in TiP's link that convinces you that your DCs can attend university in an expensive city away from home?

Because if there isn't - I can see the current government rubbing their hands with glee.

Sorry about the ugly cutting and pasting.

Starlight, every single thing you say would apply to all universities your children would have to leave home to attend, not just to Oxford and Cambridge.

If you start a university course on the basis of a belief that somehow 'it will work out' and it doesn't, you leave with no degree and in debt. And that is before you have children.........

most bursaries at private schools go to families who went to private school.

And you know that how, Talkin?

Certainly not the case at the schools my children go to.

That is true Mimsy but my DH went to Oxbridge and said it is bloody expensive to live there.

The Pupil who was offered a Cambridge place from my DD1s "modern school" ( the brightest pupil the Academy have had) was asked such questions as:

Do you think Cambridge can offer you the chance of a level playing field , with students who were educated at Private/Public schools.?
What do you think you can offer Cambridge and society, should you be offered a place?.

The poor girl who was intimidated by the questions did not know what to answer , answered "hopefully a good education", she was totally perplexed . The school she attended had given her no specific training ( despite being excellent with DD1 helping her hopefully achieve 3Bs and a place at "Horror of Horrors" a Metropolitan University). The reason the school had not given her training , because the University has its own rules totally out of touch with how the vast majority of the country live or think. P.S Oxford is worse still, as my niece pointed out,that she would not be going there , much to the disappointment of her Super selective grammar's Head mistress.

Starlight they don't need those things or that much money at Oxbridge. Three course meals are about 3.50. Free food is available almost daily. Bursaries are generous .