Uni students living at home- any experiences?

[schoolchauffeur]

DD in year 12 is just starting to look at Uni courses to apply for later this year and has been having careers advice/profiling at school etc. She has found a fantastic course which she really wants to do, it's quite unique and is only offered at one or two places in the country, but the best one is at the uni nearest to our house about 15 miles away. This is where I need the MN experts help. When DH and I went to uni ( where we met) part of the whole experience was moving away from home and learning to be independent. If DD does this course we live too close to the uni for her to be allowed to use uni accommodation so she would either have to live at home or rent somewhere in the city privately. She is fine with living at home ( says it will save us lots of money!) but I wonder if anyone has any experience of this. Does it work? How can you get them to learn financial independence? What sort of rules/household arrangements have you put in place? If DD does this she will have no tuition fee to pay as in Scotland, won't qualify for a grant or loan so not sure how to decide what to do re money? She can probably get a job either near us or in the city to earn some money herself. What are the pros and cons of your DD/DS being at home as a uni student?

living at home is less expensive.

I did my PhD at Glasgow and it seemed quite common there for people to stay at home for their undergrad if they were from the Greater Glasgow area. They didn't seem to suffer since transport in the city is so good.

DD is at uni 30 miles away from home so lives here and commutes in when she has lectures, tutorials etc. She doesn't pay us rent as she has taken a big cut in wages to go to uni (she was working fulltime after dropping out of VIIth Form, a couple of years in work helped her to figure out what she wanted to do in life) but she does pay for all of her books, petrol, car expenses, clothing, phone bill, etc. She has made friends on her course and is involved in the social life at uni.

I was worried she would be disadvantaged by not moving away but in hindsight I think she's doing ok with it all.

I actually think it's better for DC's to live away from home when they are at uni. It helps a lot with the social side of uni life. DD1 was at uni in the city where we live. Her halls were only 20 minutes walk away from us. Her university garenteed a place in halls for every first year who wanted one no matter where they lived. There were a couple of girls in her flat who she didn't really have anything in common with. But they all made an effort and she became best friends with these two girls and although although she's now 24 and married they are still best friends. My cousins eldest is the same age. He lived 20 miles away from his uni so decided to stay at home. He found he couldn't really join in with the social side of uni life as commuting took a lot of his time up. He didn't make any friends in his first year.

Moneywise my loan was only enough to pay my fees and rent so my parents and I sat down together with a budget sheet (loads online) and worked out how much I'd need to live and gave me that at the start of each term - the implicit agreement was I would budget well and never ask for more. Doing it this way worked really well as the budget was realistic from the start, if you hand out money in bits and bobs you'll feel like you're always being asked and will resent it and she won't be clear where the line is.

IMHE those who missed out at uni were those with home based relationships and who worked. If you can afford it I'd try to give her enough so she only works in the holidays. Working and commuting will really cut down the time she has to study and integrate.

Thanks Pineapple, that's a really useful piece of advice on the budgetting side.

I stayed at home and went to my local uni (RG and one of the best in the country for my subject). This was 15 years ago now, so just before fees came in and the last year of maintenance grants. I had applied and got offers from unis all around the country, but was persuaded by my parents to stay at home and commute, primarily because they were worried about me coping financially and having to work and study etc. In addition they were unable to provide any financial contribution, but could afford to have me continue living at home.

Yes, staying at home made things easy in some ways (Mum still cooked for me, etc., I didn't have to deal with bills other than personal expenses) but was hard in others and certainly by the time I was at the end of my second year I was chaffing at the bit somewhat.

I basically had no social life because I missed out on all the getting to know people stuff that happens plus the kind of enforced socialisation that happens when you have a load of 18/19/20 year olds all moving away from home to live in halls for the first time. I am a naturally shy person, so it was easy for me to become isolated and because I commuted in daily I kind of slipped by most peoples radar - I don't think I could tell you the name of anyone on doing the same modules as me for all of the first year at least. Looking back, had I gone away and been in halls I would have had to join in (and it would have been easyfor me to do so even given my shyness, just by the nature of everyone being in the same situation).

As it was I basically went to lectures and came home/went to the library to work and missed all the other uni experiences completely - which I feel has had an ongoing influence in my life since tbh.

Whilst it may sound all doom and gloom I do need to add that I did meet my wonderful DH during my second year (been together 12 years, married 4 years next month with 1 DC and 1 on the way).

Financially, bear in mind no fees to pay 15 years ago, I managed during term time with my loan & grant and I worked (supposedly part-time, more like full-time 6 days a week) during the summer holidays between years 1&2 and 2&3 which paid for various other things like getting to interviews in year 3, clothes and a couple of things like a new PC, etc.

Post-university, I moved hundreds of miles away and whilst I coped fine, I had to learn to deal with household things like bills and generally running a household while getting to grips with working full-time. My peers who had moved away for Uni got to learn about those thing then, within a slightly more relaxed envionment with lots of other people in the same boat.

My sister also stayed home and went to the same Uni - she had a similar experience, though she was slightly more social. Also, a number of her school friends did like wise (my friends all went away to Uni) - so they continued to socialise.

This has turned into a bit of a mega essay I'm afraid but I wanted to tell you my experience. If, when the time comes, my DC wanted to go to their local Uni (which given where we live is entirely possible), I have to say that I would suggest that they think long and hard about whether it was the right thing to do. At the very least, I would try to encourage them to move into halls for the first year.

Thanks for sharing your story WhenDoISleep- no need to apologise for it being long as it was very interesting and I will get my DD to read it as good account of what might happen to her. Unfortunately, at the Uni she wants to go to there is a massive shortage of halls accommodation so you are not even allowed to apply if you live less than 16 miles away from campus which we do! So looks like the way to go may be to see if she organise a flat share- there may be some people either from her current or former school who will go there and may be in same boat so looks like that is the best option.
Thanks again for taking them time to write up your account. I am sure my DD will find it a useful perspective.

Thanks for saying that schoolchaffeur.

Thinking about it further last night, I don't think I had quite realised how dissapointed I was by my university experience, in terms of the whole picture and how it has influenced how my life has been since then. Don't get me wrong, I got an excellent degree and walked into what was considered the plum graduate job (although whether that would still be the case these days, given how much the sector is currenty maligned , is debatable) and I would never have met my DH if I had not gone to the university I did. But university is mooted as some of the best days of your life, but for me it didn't feel like that.

I hope that if you do show your daughter my post, it helps provoke some serious discussion around the advantages and disadvantages of choosing your home university. After all, it would be wrong to discount an excellent course and a very good university, just because of the geographical nearness of where you live. I think that by going into the situation very aware of the disadvantages and pitfalls, your daughter can plan beforehand how to overcome them. It may be a little harder work to do that, rather than fall into the situation purely by being one of a mass of young adults living away from home for the first time, but it is not impossible. Indeed, if she does have school friends that go to the same university that will really help her. Also, your daughter has a fantastic mum who is thinking and questioning now whether this is the right path for her to take, giving plenty of time to discuss, decide and plan.

I wish your daughter all the best with whatever choice she makes.

Kind of picking up on what WhenDoISleep said, the most important social part for me has been living with other people. The things I remember most from first year are when we all congregated in someone's bedroom to get pizza and watch a film, or cooking together, even cleaning the bathroom together! It's the little things, like walking into lectures together, impromptu gatherings outside when it's sunny, running between flats getting ready for nights out and things. For me, that's what I'll always remember and treasure the most.

Almost all my friends did this when we went to university. Everyone stayed at home for first year (and got the bus in to uni) and then moved into shared flats at various points after that. It's very, very common for students at the universities in Glasgow to do this. In fact, none of us could have gotten a place in halls if we'd wanted one (there were distance requirements). So it absolutely didn't affect our social lives, and it saved us loads of money. I was only 16 when I started uni too, so it was probably for the best in every way possible.

And I would say that I had a really great time at university. If I were to have a chance to do things differently, I wouldn't. Well, I might have spent a bit less time in the pub socialising and more in lectures...