DH is limiting Y12 DC to universities in the north due to ££££

[BatteredHonda]

DC is in Y12 and wants to apply to KCL, Bristol and Exeter - alongside other unis. DC will qualify for minimum maintenance loan and we are therefore expected to top up/pay the accommodation. We struggle to make ends meet as it is so DH has said DC canNOT apply to southern unis - let alone London ones. He is recommending Leicester, Newcastle, Swansea, Belfast etc instead. DC is furious but I do get where DH coming from. What are your thoughts?

Have you checked out all available charities / hardship/ special interest/ sponsorship funds & bursaries? Some will be small local ones, some will be national and some will be based at the university of choice.

@BatteredHonda
I did miss that. In my view the police need all the brains they can get! Army? So he could go to university literally anywhere? So why have pages of discussion about paid work and highly rated universities (or not) if it doesn’t matter a jot? Make up the money and let him choose. He might change his mind about a career though.

I'm quite confused about the priorities of you and your DH as parents.

On the one hand, you seem quite happy for your ds to avoid getting a proper job or having any adult responsibilities in favour of having more time for his hobbies or a lifestyle experience like Mark Warner, and the the reason that you give for this is your perception that these things will look good on his CV in the future.

On the other hand, your DH seems keen to persuade him to forget about some universities that really would look good on hid CV in favour of going somewhere like Wolverhampton??!

The mind boggles! I honestly can't quite figure out if you and his dad are really at odds about what your ds should do, with you only being concerned about his CV and not caring about the cost and his dad being completely the opposite. Or whether you are both just completely clueless about what would really look good on a cv and are both therefore advising your ds quite badly. Or something else entirely??

Getting a degree from a good university will really help your ds, especially with a non-vocational subject like history. While the police/army might not care where he studies, he might well change his mind about going down these paths at some point, so it's best to keep his options open.

Aside from that, sport and other extracurricular activities are all great but won't make a massive difference to your ds's employability, but work experience will. It doesn't have to be glamorous, high flying work experience. There is value in proving that you can stick at the boring, menial tasks as well. As he is a good swimmer, lifeguarding would be an excellent option - one of my dd's friends does this and I believe the pay is pretty decent.

DS is not being unreasonable to want to go to a good university if his grades are up to it, and you and your DH shouldn't discourage him from this - he may always resent you got it if he feels that you pushed him towards an option that is below what he is capable of. That said, he needs to understand the financial implications of each choice and to accept that he will need to contribute to his living costs if he chooses one of the more costly options.

Incidentally Wolverhampton are having massive problems. Last year they cut a lot of arts/humanities degrees with almost no notice leaving students about to start with no place.

The university has its place, they are good at vocational/healthcare/teaching etc. But for purely academic subjects, please go elsewhere. I wish I had.

If he's aiming to join the police then time spent pulling pints in Wetherspoons - and dealing with belligerent drinks - will stand him in far better stead than rowing.

You’ve already agreed to top him up to the max which puts him in a much more privileged position than most. When I went to uni I had no option but to commute as my parents could not afford to give me any money and also I had to work in the family business (for free) at weekends. I pretty much had no life! Lots of students I know from poor backgrounds work their asses off to afford their education so I can see where your DH is coming from.

Highly recommend Nottingham. 1st yr uni accommodation may be expensive as its a campus uni but 2nd and 3rd year it's so cheap if you live in lenton. My rent 10 years ago was 50 quid a week term time only. The history course is fab, it's a Russell group uni and they take sport very seriously. There's also plenty of pt jobs if he wants to work during the hols if not during term time.

Student satisfaction means zilch. It is not how employers rank universities.

You really find out what you're made of by flipping burgers when you'd rather not be flipping burgers but that's how you afford to stay in your digs and also eat. Puking your guts up in some party city weekend after weekend is not the character builder you're suggesting it is.

Erm I think your ten year old rental cost information is waaaaaay out of date. Nobody is paying £50 a week rent in Nottingham.

Warwick and Birmingham are are rated highly for history.

You may as well not bother about Wolverhampton.

Aberystwyth does BUCS league in a fair few sports. Worth checking out BUCS results in his chosen sports to get an idea for fixtures, number of teams and level.

Loughborough is an obvious choice for a very sporty student. It's pretty well regarded these days, despite not being Russell Group etc. And it's relatively cheap to live in. No idea what their history dept is like though, or if they even have one. Then there is also the fact that a lot of the sport is so competitive that even county level wouldn't necessary cut it... you have to decide whether you'd rather be a big fish in a small pond or a tiny fish in the ocean! The sports facilities are pretty impressive though.

2nd and 3rd year accommodation costs is the thing to look at. Exeter, London and Bristol are amongst the highest. There's surely an in-between option where he's still aiming for a top 20 university but not going somewhere with catastrophic rents.

There's probably more choice and lower rents if choosing Warwick, Birmingham, Loughborough, Southampton, Nottingham type Unis.

I always find these sorts of variations fascinating.
I don't think my DD (Year 12) knows a single person who doesn't have a part time job.
But her same age cousin at a different school says the opposite.
I guess there is an element of the sheep effect.

Plus perhaps it's down to the affluence of parents (clearly the extra money being a huge factor in getting a job, but if your parents already give you loads, perhaps you don't care).

DS has a friend (year post Year 13) who is working about 60 hours a week as a lifeguard/swimming teacher plus some McDonalds shifts on the side, so that he can save up for university. So something like that is always an option.

Whilst I'm all in favour of OP's DS choosing his own university, I'm wondering if he is picking on course or where he thinks will be a good place to live/party.

The entry requirements for the armed forces don't require a degree. To join as an officer, you do need to have taken GCSEs and A levels (there is a point system and you have to have taken enough exams to get the required number of points - but usually 2 or 3 A levels is enough). Before he applies to uni, it would be worth discussing with the RAF (or whichever branch of the military he's interested in) recruitment office. Uni is so expensive and he should be really confident that the experience of uni will be worth the £45k-ish debt that he'll put himself in. If he's going to end up in the same career regardless of whether or not he goes to uni, is it worth it?

Partly affluence, but also partly the parents’ approach to academics.

Parents who value education and want their kids to do as well as they can tend to want their kids to focus on it.

The military degree scholarships are not easy to get. CCF is a big thing at DSs school and quite a few kids who want to do engineering type degrees went for the scholarships. They are all very impressive kids. Only one got it.

I feel rather sad that your son is being pushed towards cheap, academically weaker choices by your H, rather than the sound ones he’s chosen. Did your husband attend HE? I feel like he doesn’t really understand the process.

I don’t believe your son won’t have time for a job, either. I studied at a good university, had quite a lot of teaching hours, and still worked part time in a bar and a shop.

That doesn't deter them getting a holiday job though. Not one of DD's friends started uni having not worked at all. I do agree though that there are many part time jobs that expect 6th former's to work too many hours and that can be detrimental to their studies.

I totally agree with the comments on the naivety of recommending a less academic uni. Really bad advice. And if he doesn’t like his course, the uni,,the town, as well as it being shitter academically - it will be on you.

He will definitely have time for a job at a good redbrick - they’re not doing Oxbridge terms.

@BatteredHonda armycadets.com/find-a-detachment/

Agreed.

I have to agree with @titchy
KCL is 13th for History
Wolverhampton is 72nd
I just cant imagine pushing the my child to do a degree with significantly lower prospects. If he decides against the police/army/raf then where he studies will matter. I imagine it might well matter for officer training too. I knew a few lads who went to Sandhurst after Durham.
The army do offer bursaries / grants for those who wish to be officers. I think 6k a year whilst you are studying at uni.

@BatteredHonda sometimes things are cheap for a reason and sometimes going cheap is a false economy. Your DH needs to stop with things such as Wolverhampton and understand that it is not the only factor.

I would say looking at your list that Swansea and Newcastle are strong contenders for offering a good balance

look at a variety of factors and balance it out - remember university degrees are not equal a Newcastle degree is worth far more than Wolverhampton

I don't agree with this at all. A lot of DD's friends are very high flying types academically, with highly educated parents who place a lot of value on academic stuff. DD herself is also very academic. All of them work and it doesn't seem to make any difference to their grades at all.

I think it's probably a peer pressure thing. A few of them start working, and then others follow. DD and her friends tend to regard getting a job as an essential rite of passage, and it's seen as a bit immature and entitled to only rely on your parents for handouts (though many of them still get those as well!).

If that peer pressure wasn't there, perhaps a lot of them wouldn't bother if they didn't actually need the money.

I think a lot of parents these days recognise that getting straight A* grades is great, but solid academic grades are not really enough. They absolutely see value in kids getting PT jobs. I know mine has learnt so much from hers.