Staying at home for University

[Orangesandlemons77]

Reading in the papers that since Covid and with the cost of living as well, more Universities are having applicants from students living at home.

Wondered what others thought of this? I have a DS who will be applying this year, and yes think he may be applying to one nearby.

It’s great your 19y is so mature. I believe you.

I had a mature girl and a less mature boy. Same upbringing. Leaving home was the making of him. My daughter was ready to leave at 16 (she didn’t of course).

All teens are different.

And yes there are a million different ways to mature. For my son, leaving home for university was better than commuting from home to lectures.

Anyway my kids needed to leave London as they love their home city way too much!

As a Londoner I commuted and lived at home. Wouldn’t have been my first choice but professional exams meant London training was better. The course was packed with people from small towns and villages but the reality was most of them were terrified of the big city and only went out to student nights or tourist traps. We Londoners ended up stuck together.

I was quite envious of friends who moved away, I felt they had the full university experience in proper student towns. My course was also full on and we didn’t have many holidays.

DD is going away for the experience. The top tier London universities are now packed with international students who of course hang out together speaking in their own languages which adds another question mark over how easy it will be to make lifelong friends.

who of course hang out together speaking in their own languages

This is a weird MN assumption. Some do, some don't. Same with home students.

@OutlookStalking i quite agree the 50% figure of 18 year olds heading off to uni you often see spouted is utter nonsense, although from the UCAS end cycle reports I thought it had passed 40% in the last few cycles.?

there is however a very clear regional disparity, the figure for London is well past 50% for example. The SouthEast is there or thereabouts.

I don't think it is an MN thing. Sadly, for some students it is an actual thing.

In my daughters friendship group they all left school to go to uni. Of those 12 girls only 2 live away from home. The rest all still live at home.

it’s not as common where we live for teens to live away from home, especially when you live less than an hours commute into a huge town with 3 universities.

Yup. Niece is having a lonely time on her course at UCL. Mostly Chinese students, living in flats parents have bought them or private serviced accommodation. They speak their own language all the time and don’t socialise. Their spoken English is poor to the extent that it’s disruptive to the teaching.

I think this may be a cultural thing, I have heard from friends who work at universities that Chinese students aren't that interested in integrating. DD2 did her Masters in London where part of the attraction for her was the international aspect, but the other students were mostly from Europe plus a smattering of South Africans and Australians.

No concessions were made to non-English speaking students but maybe because it was a Masters they were that bit older? They all wanted to mix with those from other countries and experience London, and she made a very good Spanish friend.

This was the case for my brother at LSE thirty years ago. It’s an even bigger issue now.

Though it’s at a lot of universities. My niece has noted a similar trend at Bristol though the international students are fewer in number than in London. She says they talk through lectures and are on their phones which is distracting. My friend’s son at Edinburgh has made lots of friends from the states and his mum is concerned he has so few UK friends and his friends fly back to the US every holiday.

Of course international students increase diversity which is great. But if they don’t integrate that much, it’s difficult for both them and their peers. The few that do integrate seem to have a better time from what I have heard!

We are in Scotland all our DCs wanted to go away from home which we were happy to fund so no student debt