Are they many of you that have persuaded your dc to go to local universities and stay living at home

[EleanorReally]

i am sure i heard this was a thing now, due to expense.

I taught at a London university for several years and it was absolutely obvious that the students who still lived at home were having a different experience to those who didn't. There were pros and cons to both, but it definitely wasn't the same.

@CarrieErbag Bath Uni do an Autism residential to my knowledge, an opportunity for those with ASD to try out uni beforehand. You don’t have to then go on to Bath uni, but it might be useful in relieving some of your DD’s anxieties?

This was this summer.

www.bath.ac.uk/events/autism-summer-school-2019/

I believe that UCLAN have excellent padtoral care for students with autism.

Birmingham

www.bcu.ac.uk/student-info/student-affairs/enablement-and-wellbeing/disability-support/life-skills-summer-school

I hope mine will stay at home - we have a good uni and it will mean they can save money. They can still go out and roll in at 4am and I'll pretend not to hear them 😂

I didn't really enjoy the living away experience at uni but I wouldn't try and influence them. As I know it's their choice. The uni I went to is now £165 a week uncatered!!!

DS has just gone to a uni 3 hours away so will get the full 'uni experience '.

A friend's DD has chosen to save money and live at home commuting 30 mins by train to a local uni. However, add walking time from stations and she will spend 2 hours a day commuting. What she hadn't accounted for was that some days, she has to be there both at the start and end of the day for lectures. She is effectively homeless during the day whereas live in students can go back to halls and relax/study/eat. Hopefully as she gets to know her classmates , they may invite her back but not guaranteed. Meantime, she'll have to hang around libraries/cafes all day which I would have thought would be quite stressful.

My dad told me he wasnt paying for me to stay at university so I could fund it myself or stay at home rent free. Easy choice.

Back in the 80s it was absolutely the thing to do, leave home, but due to so much expense some things have got to change
True, I did my A levels in 1982 and no one could wait to get on and leave home.
Teens are different now, they hang out with parents muchmuch more than I ever did. But they are treated better now, lots more respect than was around for me when I was young.

What she hadn't accounted for was that some days, she has to be there both at the start and end of the day for lectures. She is effectively homeless during the day whereas live in students can go back to halls and relax/study/eat.

That's a very good point.

As older parents with no family nearby it is extremely important that DD learns to be independent. TBH I would have been disappointed if she had opted to stay at home, but we have been saving for her going to university and can afford to subsidise her.

It’s interesting . In my university age child’s social circle there is a real socio-economic class divide in this. Middle class kids are far more likely to move away from home-more confidence, more experience of university from parents and siblings, more willingness to take on debt. We have a very good local university- and that’s where most of the working class kids go. One of the things the school is trying to do it to encourage them to widen their horizons.

My dd was adamant she wanted to move away to uni . She went to a uni a hours drive away so easy enough to come home at weekends .
By Christmas she hated it didn't get along with all the girls in halls so I suggested could she transfer she said she couldn't. Anyway she came back after the first year and looked into moving to the uni in our city . She changed courses but I think she's happier ( and it's cheaper we struggled to top up her loan ) .
My dh wasn't keen on her going away at all so was all told you so but I explained she had to give it a try .

One of mine is 1.5 hours away, the other 3. At the seaside. To be honest if you’ve got to get in a car you may as well pick the nicest place you can! Trains and mega bus do go everywhere and it’s also nice to visit somewhere lovely for a weekend.
I say 1. Choose your course you love 2. Pick a lovely place you’d love the opportunity to live in.

Ds hasn't been too bad for time to fill in between classes, but he is doing a contact heavy course with lectures, tutorials and lab time. He's mostly been able to go to the computer labs during gaps and complete all his coursework so effectively leaving his evenings free.

My dd went 400 miles away. She loved it- but when she hit problems it was hard for both of us. I don’t want to go through anything like her 3rd year again....

Oldest daughter is at uni a couple of hours away, far enough away to be independent but close enough to get home easily.x

I did the living away from home and experienced the whole crazy drunken nights out. So much so I crashed out of university after 2 years. So whilst I didn't encourage mine to study in a local London university I could see the benefits and when they opted to study and live at home I was relaxed.

Working out very well as he is actually studying and doing very well. Something I never did! Seems to have a reasonable social life although not as good as mine. But as I said mine was too good.

My dd1 started out staying home, because the best place to do her course is right on the doorstep (art school). After a few weeks she got an offer of a flat share and moved out.

She came home for the summer and is still here! Looking for a flat with her boyfriend, but they've not found anywhere yet. Saving her quite a bit of her SAAS funding! (And us, on the money we were giving her).

Re Scotland I actually think it’s quite a Glasgow thing rather than other places in Scotland. Obviously it does happen elsewhere but it’s most common in Glasgow and surrounding areas.

My brother went to our home university in 1990, his then girlfriend hadn't passed with high enough A level grades to go to university & got a job, he had looked at Manchester & York but decided to go to Sheffield, his way of looking at it was he had a room, got fed & didnt have far to travel, plus his girlfriend was local. He didn't socialize much with people at university, just kept his usual group of close friends who were either at university or working.

Dd is in third year about a 6.5hour drive away. If she flies, it’s an hour on the plane and then a 1.5hour drive.
Ds1 is currently taking a gap year, trying to figure out what he’s interested in.
Dd2 want to attend a school that’s about a 36 hour drive away. I just googled it. She has cerebral palsy and I have been really trying to get her to consider our local (which is an hour and a half drive) but she won’t have it. She also has OCD and anxiety disorder. I have absolutely no idea what will happen if that’s the decision she makes, but we’ll have to roll with it I suppose. I’m certainly not telling her she can’t go where she wants because she’s disabled. But I’ll be gently asking lots of questions.

We live not far outside Edinburgh . If DS ends up at Edinburgh or Heriot Watt, he’ll live in halls the first year and then has grand plans to flat share with a couple of friends the following years. We’ll see if the latter ever happens.

We live out i the sticks so if DD had gone to the local unversity she would still have wanted to live in halls. The last train back to our village is just after 10.30.

“Obviously it does happen elsewhere but it’s most common in Glasgow and surrounding areas.”

Hmm, not so sure... like I said I’m just outside Edinburgh, I know of very few people who go to a uni close enough to commute to and stay there instead, most of them seem to stay at home or they’re away to St. Andrews or somewhere further away.

If they’re fairly nearby the finances are just much better if they stay at home, leaves them money for all those nights out, lol

It might be worth pointing out that many patents subsidised DC before the current loans regime. My DH’s parents refused to pay as did my father for my sisters. There were no local universities where we lived so it was a huge effort to go and maintain somewhere to live with such mean parents. DH’s parents bought a colour TV and caravan instead.