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.

@Kite22
Medicine - doesn’t matter where you study. Starting jobs don’t vary much in pay. In fact working in a cheap housing area means you can buy a house pretty quickly. Medicine is a degree with a very superior return on investment. Students will get a well paid job.

Economics, for example, is much more interesting. LSE will set you on a well paid path but Wolverhampton (in the IFFS study) won’t. Some of their grads would be better off being nurses.

Of course there are more than 6 universities. I totally agree the choice should be an informed one. Quite often future earnings is missing though. With grad employment taking a knock surely employment is vital? Also I’ve seen teachers tell young people about careers but they, in truth, know nothing. Even in stem, some degrees are better than others so why not research everything about course snd employment? Everyone seems concerned about earnings after uni and house buying but don’t factor it in prior to choosing a course and uni. It all needs to be thought about.

@Kite22

Even if they got the full loan it doesn't sound enough to cover all the accomodation and food costs etc

Overwhelmingly it is enough (the full loan)
As has already been said, the student needs to make decisions about where they study, about what accommodation they would like, about how much they want to work during term time, and about how they budget their money.
There are also option to take a gap year and work and save first.
Generally, there are 3 months they can work between A levels and going to University during which a buffer can be saved.
Most students don't start with a savings account of £15K either, so your student is very much richer than the overwhelming majority of students starting out.

You sound very much like you have decided for them anyway. I hope he has been given the full information and the chance to view Universities and talk to students and to make his own decision. Staying home and going to local University is an absolutely valid choice, if it is the student's informed choice.

Yes, he will make the final decision. With the CTF of 15K, yes I was surprised how it had grown as we'd only been putting in £30 a month. It was a good scheme the government brought in at the time, hopefully quite a few of the DC coming up to 18 will have theirs also I expect. (or second DC has one too)

My daughter will live at home for her foundation year, then go off to live at uni. Should she go to a local uni, I would still encourage her to live in halls. She will be 19 then and I think would benefit from the 'independence' such as it is when everything is pretty much on tap!

Medicine - doesn’t matter where you study. Starting jobs don’t vary much in pay

Another MN trope. There are probably as many different types of doctors are there are engineers. Some specialities are very competitive, and you end up taking exams seemingly well into your 30s. And some fields (urology, cardiology, plastics, dermatology) if you have some private practice, pay significantly more. If you want a job in a London teaching hospital in a competitive field which involves research, you are probably best off taking a six year degree.

(I am not a doctor so happy to be corrected, although I have a DD who has always been clear about which, competitive, part of medicine she wants to go into. But equally I suspect Tizer is not one either.)

It doesn't really matter which medical school you go to for undergrad, or even which country. It matters very much where you do your higher training.

I did all my higher training and became a consultant in London teaching hospitals having done my undergrad medical degree in another country.

And junior doctors' salaries are indeed completely standardised. (You can earn much more if you do locums on the side of course).

I understood that it can be really competitive to get into some higher training. Hence DD getting the advice to make the most of opportunities at each point.

We know London consultants with significant private practices who earn a lot. Saying that junior doctor salaries are the same is pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things.

My advice would be to do a lot of extra stuff while at med school: volunteering, extra courses, relevent summer work experience etc. I also did a shedload of locums (in several countries) for a year after my internship and got a lot of varied experience before applying for higher training.

@Needmoresleep I was replying to where someone said "starting jobs dont vary very much in pay" and you said it was an "MN trope". It is actually totally true.

Of course some consultants make much much more than others. I am myself a "London consultant with a private practice" so I do know what I am talking about!

Medicine - doesn’t matter where you study. Starting jobs don’t vary much in pay.

and I say again, not every student is 100% focused on getting the most pay. As you say, Drs are very well paid (quite rightly IMO), so even if there were a slight difference, it isn't going to 'trump' other things about the course being more appealing to one student or another.

Economics, for example, is much more interesting. LSE will set you on a well paid path but Wolverhampton (in the IFFS study) won’t. Some of their grads would be better off being nurses.

Again, I am aware that getting a 2:1 from LSE is going to give you more opportunities than getting a 2:1 from Wolverhampton but not everybody is starting from a point where applying to LSE is going to be a realistic option. I haven't looked it up, but I am going to presume the offers from LSE for economics are going to be 3 As or above ? Well, the overwhelming majority of students applying for undergrad courses, aren't expected to achieve those grades.

Then nobody is going to take a nursing degree unless they really want to be a nurse - it isn't a job you do when you are a bit squeamish or needle phobic or just don't like people, because you will end up earning a bit more than someone who studied economic at an ex-poly. That's a bizarre thing to suggest. It doesn't mean that getting an economics degree from Wolverhampton isn't going to give you more opportunities than trying to apply for a job without a degree at all though.

My impression is that longer term it does matter. Or put it another way I come across enough doctors to know some do care about where people train. And indeed one or two who can be are quite snobby about Oxbridge.

Certainly from the later stages of medical school, it is far from certain DD will get into the speciality she wants. However a good intercalation, and an interesting elective should help. As I said more generally upthread, you probably maximise your cancers of getting to where you want, if you know where you want to get to.

Kite, you are right.

Some in every profession are money motivated, but not everyone. Two of DDs medic friends are quite focussed on money. One is aiming for, essentially, private prostate surgery, the other intercalated in law. (In fairness his parents pushed him into medicine and he was always more likely to be a lawyer.)

LSE economics is competitive and though they ask for A*AA in practice it is more. But again money matters to some more than others. Unfortunately, perhaps, DS found that being surrounded by people who wanted to work for Goldman Sachs put him off a City career altogether.

I find the focus here on salary rather than profession and job satisfaction quite odd.

@Orangesandlemons77

We live right in the city centre so it would make sense practically.

In that case, I'd definitely be encouraging him to apply elsewhere.

The one thing my DC are not doing is staying at home (final one about to go to university in September). They need to be independent and do stupid stuff without me knowing.

Some people might be snobby about Oxbridge (not in my experience, in my speciality though, I literally have no idea where most of my collegues did their first degree, a good many were not in the UK though. People don't care), but your alma mater makes little difference when it comes to getting good posts in training especially the higher you go.

I lved at home throughout my undergrad degree, until I was 23. I got up to plenty of absolutely hair-raising "stupid stuff" without my parents knowing!

I've read that your uni and uni grades matter for about 2-3 years after graduation. After that it is your work experience.

I find the focus here on salary rather than profession and job satisfaction quite odd.

Could not agree more @Needmoresleep, and slightly depressing too. There is more to life, and more and more people are looking for a sensible work-life balance rather than working the sort of stupid hours sometimes required in the City and by law firms. If all my DCs had declared they wanted to be lawyers purely because they'd earn lots of money, I'd think I'd failed at parenting to be honest. And what's the point or earning big bucks if you have no time to enjoy it?

What are some careers that have a decent pay and good work life balance?

In medicine grades mean literally nothing. If you passed you passed.

@yogabbagabba134 some medical specialities (after the initial years of training though, so not till age about 30). Not GP, surgery, or obstetrics.

@thing47
I’m sure everyone wants happy Dc. However you can read plenty of threads where people are very upset because they cannot afford to Leave home and buy a property. Their degree hadn’t given them much advantage at all. In fact none.

Why do you think high earners don’t have time to enjoy their money? Are you one? My DD seems to know plenty of high earners who live what they do and mist certainly enjoy their money. DH earned plenty and we’ve had a great life.

[quote TizerorFizz]@CurlyhairedAssassin
The huge problem with that scenario is that people who can afford it will make sure their dc get to the more desirable universities. The stay at homes limit where they go, what jobs they get and ultimately what they earn. The parents with no money have DC who can choose because their DC get full loans and bursaries. It’s the average person with several going to uni that really struggle when they have to pay. They put pressure on DC to stay at home but it might not be in the interests of DC at all.[/quote]
I guess that is where standardisation of degrees, plus a total rehaul of higher vocational qualifications,might come in. Everyone knows that these days, all degrees are not equal. If there’s one thing to come out of the pandemic it’s the realisation that In terms of contact hours some courses at some unis are woefully lacking. And in England we are sorely lacking in talented young people with higher level technical qualifications. So I think a rehaul is needed with young people able to pick either a good quality technical or academic higher level qualification at a local institution, such that they hold virtually equal status.

@Watapalava

IMO yes. Mumsnet exists in another universe to me. We recruit high calibre graduates - we don't care uni, we care grade and experience. A 1st from a local uni vs 2.1 from red brick is no brainer. Similarly a kid froma local comp who worked his way through to a 2.1 would be recruited against a private kid who had a 2.1 with no work experience. Its added value,.

Well it depends how you define “high calibre”, I suppose. IMO, all Firsts are most definitely not equal. If you’re happy to recruit students who only needed very average grades to get into their course, which is either undersubscribed and they were offered lower grades if they firmed them, or oversubscribed, like psychology , and who had minimal contact hours and put in average effort to get their first, then good for you. Depends on the job I suppose. Different skills are needed for different roles, and obviously intelligence does come into the mix too.