University life for freshers (2019/20) - we're hopping towards Easter with a pandemic to avoid **Title edited by MNHQ**

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

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My dds will save that kidney from this years loans as they get paid a bit more last term to cover the summer.

Money not kidney lol! They're not that desperate yet!

DD's Chicago college appears to be considering cancelling Spring break, and moving the next term forward a week.

Personally I'd rather they kept Spring break, but encouraged all the students to stay in halls rather than them traveling all over the US then potentially coming back infected. I think they need the break.

A friend in Seattle says her daughter, who is at college, has been told she cannot go home to see her parents over Spring Break because they are too high risk an area now.

We can pay it for her. Just wondered if it was what most people do. I feel she should make a contribution. Perhaps we’ll say we’ll pay half. It really grates to pay £1k for an empty house!

@RedHelenB

DD usually spends at least some of the summer in Bristol (went back a month early last time) so not so bad, but I can’t see DS doing that in Durham - there won’t be anything going on, never mind the gf if that’s still going

This is all new to us as DD is the eldest. Her loan seems to have been quite equally split so far and I don’t think her last payment will be larger by my calculations as she’s already had 2/3 of it. She has a field trip abroad in early September for 2 weeks and flying from Newcastle so I don’t think she’ll go back before then. That’s if it goes ahead of course.

I've told DS I expect him to pay for his August rent (his contract starts then). It's a way to motivate him to get a job otherwise he'll try to get out of doing so.

DD is at uni with many well to do students. Sometimes I wish she’d gone somewhere a bit more real. She has a tendency to look at what she hasn’t got rather than what she has so the clientele is perhaps not the most healthy for her mental health.

DS says some of the overseas students have bottomless pockets, no wonder Harvey Nicks does well up north. A friend years ago said a fellow student when she arrived had a bum bag stuffed with pocket money 7k in all, she told her to put it in the bank.

I do not think it good for students to have this kind of money at uni. but what do I know.

DD is friends with a mix of students from all kinds of backgrounds. One of them has very wealthy parents with a huge house in Surrey and a property in France, one of them lives in a tiny council house, one went to private school, some are from the middle East and come from wealthy families and the rest are in between.

I do not think it good for students to have this kind of money at uni. but what do I know.

I agree, although IME it was not foreign students but usually UK students who were loaded. They'd have conversations that went along the lines of "First we're going to Val's place in Mustique, then we're going to Rox's place in Antibes, then we're going to Gray's parent's place in Switzerland..." For them a fairly average way to finish their summer holiday was by all going to Barbados together for 3 weeks.

At one point I started dating one of them but his friends all barred him from having a girlfriend who just wasn't quite, you know. Literally they banned him from seeing me.

One of them wrote off 3 cars in his first year. Daddy (CEO of British Rail I think? Or maybe British Gas?) just kept replacing them.

In our final year they were actually forced to mix with us hoi polloi through projects, etc, and they actually discovered we were quite interesting, intelligent people. You could see their shock.

@HoldMyLobster they sound frightful.

I think I knew the whole range at uni, from the person who when asked where they came from said something along the lines of "well, my official residence is in..." through to people at the other end. I don't recall it being more than a passing interest.

I asked dd at Christmas what proportion of people were private, and she said she hadn't a clue-schools hadn't been discussed at all, nor had she noticed particularly "richer" people with money to spend.
She's usually quick at picking up that sort of data if it's mentioned, so I think it probably isn't something that is talked about.

I don’t think anyone is openly talking about their money, it just becomes apparent when money isn’t an issue and parents are lawyers and GPs and ski seasons are the done thing iyswim.

I agree Benjispruce. In DD's case the conversation came about when she and her friends went on Google Streetview to show each other where they lived. The one with wealthy parents lives in what looks like a mansion, and someone asked her how many rooms it had. She said she didn't know but they had three halls!

The girl in question is not at all up herself, and is really nice, as it the privately educated girl. In fact DD said that you would never know that the privately educated girl had gone to private school.

My eldest was asked for a long weekend visit, it was a castle... he did have a good time as did they all. The castle was owned by a middle east family, who had the money to run it well and heat it.

DS has just emailed me to say his phone is broken again : this must be the fourth time. He clearly doesn't want to get it repaired but it is still in contract...

Of course , in this day and age how does one contact one's child without a mobile...?

Email? Facebook?
Both of which can be access from a laptop. I feel your frustration Piggy

What kind of phone is it?

Mine hardly ever answers his phone these days. I did remind him recently that we are paying for it, only because I have no idea how to transfer the contract to him. DH set it up, but doesn't know what he did with the details. Are most youngsters on Facebook? Neither of mine would accept me as a friend and I don't think DS uses it anymore. He mainly uses Snapchat, which I don't.

My DD has a Facebook account but don’t think she uses it. I’m. It allowed to be her friend either. We have a family WhatsApp and I have Snapchat with DD as my only friend. The snapmaps function is handy just so I know she’s alive though occasionally it shows she’s in a wood at 2am. It’s the nearest signal apparently

He doesn't have Facebook gin.

Email only works between one person at a time and isn't a conversation so it is all quite annoying. Basically he is angling to get rid of this phone.

I'll have to phone them up tomorrow and see what happens about cancelling a contract and let him sort a new one himself I guess...

It's a Samsung I think.

He had the same issue with an iPhone. He seems to trash phones.

I know how you feel @Piggywaspushed but DD’s phone isn’t broken. I hardly hear from her this term. Does anyone else notice less contact?

I think our DC are more settled now, and busier.

I had a call today from DD which was a nice surprise. She's been away at boarding school for 4 years before she went to university, so I'm used to contact being fairly limited especially when she's busy.

Anyway one of the reasons she called was to let me know that the initial bill she got for her ER visit a couple of weeks ago ($11,000+) has been sent to insurance and is now $400. She didn't want me worrying about it. I told her I hadn't been worrying about it, having worked in insurance, but I really did appreciate her taking on the responsibility of sorting things out and keeping me informed. She's definitely maturing.