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?

How did yourcdayghter get full loans if you can afford to give her 500 a month?

My son is at kcl. His tiny cupboard of a room with a shared bathroom costs £280 a WEEK. It is outrageous.

I too would tell anybody to avoid london.

Tell that to Chinese and Indian students. And education isn’t just about academic study, it covers sport, music, drama etc.

@Highlyflavouredgravy and to show how they are ripping students off - my son pays around that in a 2 bed flatshare with a flat mate in Belsize Park in a very lovely flat

It's become big business.

I suggested to my DD (now in 1st year at Surrey Uni) that we'd look at universities up to 90 min/2 hour radius by car from our house. She wanted to study Chemistry & most Universities offer this course so I couldn't see the pint of her going up to Edinburgh (for example). We live in Hertfordshire. She's a 50 min drive away & it's worked out perfectly for us. She's felt anxious/homesick/has some social anxiety so she's been back a fair bit since she started in Sept. She also had a 3 wk break at Christmas & a reading wk in January. I'd see what the train journey is like /how much that would cost if DC are planing on choosing a Uni that's miles away personally. We're lucky - I'm a SAHP so I can pick up my DD during the wk when traffic is quiet & when she has no lectures (Fridays) otherwise its a 2 hour train journey home, via London - which is also fine. I'm so pleased she's not too far. The Uni is great & I have peace of mind knowing she can easily/cheaply come home when she wants. Lots of her friends go home a lot too (more than I ever did 30 years ago when I was at Uni) & some live nearby & commute in to lectures. I have friends with kids where the drive for parents is a 7-8 hour round trip or a very expensive train journey. If the DC don't want to come home during term time that's fine but even the most outgoing & confident kid can really struggle in the first term of Uni & it only makes matters worse if they are hundreds of miles away....

It's a massive business for Unite. DS calculated the rent in his building over 900 students turnover was between 7 and 8 million for his building.

Welsh builders here got into this gravy train years ago. They're now money lenders for other builders because of the money sloshing about in their accounts

Actually, I was challenging your massive generalisation regarding the value placed on education by parents who encourage their kids to work. I just don't think there is any correlation.

My dd spends a lot of time on extracurriculars at a fairly high level, but she still finds time to work, and indeed, for a full and varied social life. She is exceptionally busy and her schedule wouldn't be for the faint hearted, but she manages to stay on top of her academic work regardless.

In her case, she has a generous allowance from us that will cover all of her immediate needs, so she isn't working for stuff that she wants but more from what she gets out of the experience. She has saved a significant sum over last 18 months which will no doubt help her to afford what she wants when she is a struggling medical student. And I'm pretty sure that the time management skills that she has developed will also stand her in pretty good stead at that point too.

It's absolutely fine if you don't want your kids to work or if they don't want to work, but please don't dress it up as you caring more about their education than the rest of us. You don't.

My other child is at newcastle and is living in a huge house with his friends with a massive bedroom, lovely living room , kitchen. 2 bathrooms etc outdide space, 10 mins from uni and is paying 80 a week!

I completely agree. Education is broader than just academics. Music, drama and sport are all valuable. It's just that some of us see work experience as a hugely important part of that mix as well. One aspect of a rounded education that we wouldn't want our dc to miss out on.

Agreed.

We also admire how one of our son's stuck at a job with a difficult demanding boss, despite us privately hoping he would tell him where he could go!

He stuck with it and suited himself and ditched the job when it suited HIM.

His boss came back looking for him and any recommendations he might have for "hard workers like him"...the only compliment he ever paid him.🤨

I think it helps build a general resilience and resilience is hugely important in life, no matter what background you come from.

In fact, if you read back more carefully you would see I simply proffered a couple of examples of some kids don’t do paid work in sixth form in response to another poster. This was by no means posited as some kind of comprehensive summary of all available perspectives.

I have to be honest, I have zero interest in your children, or indeed posters such as yourself who use other people’s threads to promote their own kids and their lifestyle.

It’s hilarious that you think I don’t want my kids to work or care more about education than other people.

I would strongly advise you to read posts more objectively, less personally.

Who here has said work experience isn’t a valuable part of education?

I don’t think dry from London they are all similar

I can’t comment more widely but OP has mentioned queens Belfast as one her DH would support and Bristol as one he wouldn’t. I have a child in each. Rent in Bristol for a room in a shared flat is over £600 per month, Belfast is £300 per month.

I was referring to what you said here:

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

Your implication was very clear, no matter how much you try now to backtrack.

I have no need to promote my lifestyle or that of my dd, so it matters not a jot whether you're interested or not. I just tend to challenge bullshit when I see it.

I’m not backtracking in any way, my point stands.

You seem quite confused - the argument in your head is not the one on the page.

Are you actually saying there are not parents who prefer their kids to focus on education during term time and leave paid work for the holidays? (And indeed kids who prefer this too).

@Highlyflavouredgravy Yep! Newcastle is also excellent. It really is wings and roundabouts though- we live in Bath and rooms here can be had for same as Manchester or Leeds- but they all often want these flash new developments with en-suites etc

At A level stage, no issue focussing on education plus sport, music, debating, drama and other things that make Dc happy. Schools promote these activities. Could be paid work if they want. However it’s far more useful for the cv when it’s university level and geared towards a career. Then it can be focussed and valuable.

What an interesting thread this has become!

Sorry I came across it a bit late but @BatteredHonda I can confirm from recent experience (last summer) what PPs said about working for Mark Warner – lots of fun, the staff are very well fed and watered and they do get time to do their own sailing/windsurfing/paddleboarding etc but it's not going to fund their first year at university. Sorry to say.

Also had a inward chuckle about the criticism of Wolverhampton – the only multi-millionaire among my friendship group took a Business Studies degree at Wolverhampton back in the day… That said, I do agree that for an academic subject like History there are almost certainly better options.

I would second those who have suggested there will be plenty of time during university holidays to make some money. All 3 of mine coached sport – which clearly sounds like an option for your DS – and got paid way better than they would have working in a bar or cafe. It also provides people skills, planning and prep experience and possibly budgeting opportunities. My only tip would be for your DS to get coaching qualifications before he goes to university so he can hit the ground running when the holidays roll around.

@BatteredHonda it has just occurred to me that your DH doesn’t trust that your son won’t overstretch himself financially and you won’t bail him out.

let him - make it clear what support you will give him and what the limits are and let him make his own choice. And let him make his own mistakes. Highlight Newcastle/Swansea etc but it is his choice you cannot stop him

Erm, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. You seem to have reading comprehension problem.

If you read my posts above, you will see that I have quite clearly acknowledged that some parents prefer that their kids don't engage in paid work during term time because they want them to focus on their studies instead. That is evidently the case, from this thread alone, even if it wasn't already obvious.

As I have explained already, my point was not to dispute this fact, but rather to dispute the insinuation that parents who are opposed to term time working feel that way because they care more about education or value it more highly than those parents who think that part time work is actually quite useful. I don't really understand what is so difficult to grasp about this.

The very clear implication of the statement from you that I quoted in my previous post, given the context of the thread, was that that "parents who value education and want their kids to do well" will tend to discourage paid work, whether that's during term time or whatever. If that isn't what you meant, then what on earth was the point that you were trying to make?

I’m not the one with the comprehension difficulties.

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

You agreed: I have quite clearly acknowledged that some parents prefer that their kids don't engage in paid work during term time because they want them to focus on their studies instead.

Where have I said or insinuated that parents who don’t allow paid work during term time value education more highly than those that do allow it? I never made that comparison.

This is why I have said that the argument in your head is not the one on the page.

OK. Perhaps I am reading your post wrong.

Could you explain then what you did mean by your post, and what the relevance of it was in relation to the rest of the thread?

I don't think any of this is a big deal. mostly my children didn't work as teenagers or at university as they and I could afford they did not although most of them had some kind of holiday job occasionally. They obviously had some friends with part time university jobs. The idea behind middle class children including those at private schools not working is because they are only young once, can then have holidays in exotic places abroad, have some fun, be available for paid formal career specific week of work where their future career might be etc. There is nothing worse about that view than about those who think students should always have a part time job.

I used to work some periods may be 2 - 5 weeks in the summer for a UK based children's holiday company when a student which I got a lot out of although the wages was nothing much. One of my children worked abroad in holiday resorts of a company like Mark Warner and had a good time too - beer money rather than money to top up university costs.

In this case the boy wants history with war studies that he cannot do in many plaes. He may well be shooting himself in the foot if he goes to a bad university just because he wants the war studies bit added on. He might be better off picking universities based on how hard they are to get into and perhaps avoid London due to cost and its being a different university experience there.

Paid work at uni can be an issue outside Oxbridge - I had an utterly inconsistent timetable that didn't fit any useful work patterns. Lots of 3 hour gaps between lectures which were fine for getting academic work done but utterly useless for paid work. Didn't have any weekdays clear of lectures and had late lectures 2 days a week. Also had a sports scholarship tying up Wednesday afternoons and evenings with BUCS matches. Weekends were mostly needed for competitions as well.

I worked all kinds of jobs in my holidays (post office, factory packing as well as office work) however and nowadays would have picked up some paid freelancing through my sport (lots of kids in the sport now coach and referee at competitions at weekends in return for ££).

Pretty sure a lot of the junior coaches at my kids' sports classes are uni students - but in Scotland, especially Glasgow area there's a tendency to live at/near home.

Some posters on this thread seem to have simplified your ds's choices into some sort of binary "ds is right" vs "dh is right" which it really isn't.

The ds has chosen a London University - horrifically expensive but does at least get some additional loan ...... Exeter - still pretty expensive I believe but I hear less about accommodation issues there .... and Bristol which is renowned to be one of the most expensive places to rent, anywhere, and doesn't come with any London weighting.

But it doesn't mean that every other university, where the cost of living might be more affordable for him, is right at the other end of the "quality" scale. There are many other Universities that are both highly respected, and more affordable.

The OP has agreed her dh doesn't know much about Universities, and rankings, and the fact there are lots of different rankings referring to lots of different things. I think we can all deduce that her ds doesn't know much about finance, budgeting and paying his own way.

What we (as a collective group of MNers) could do to help more is post some links to further reading the OP (and her ds) could do. I'm a bit out of touch and don't have them at my fingertips anymore, but I'm sure some on this thread could help.
There have been helpful suggestions about how the ds might be able to finance the difference if he decides to apply for one of the 3 he has looked at, but it just seems to make a lot of sense to also keep an open mind about considering other excellent Universities around the UK. Perhaps people quoting the 'rankings' for different things could link to where OP and her ds could also look at them.

I wouldn't discount London too- my son went to Birbeck and had a 3 day a week job in tech too. With Birbeck it's 2 evenings a week and you can definitely have a decent job too- plus full time student loans and fees at London rates. It's UCL affiliated so degree is from UCL . They also got great part time lecturers relevant to the industry . May not be right for your situation OP, but can work well for others and there is a lot more decently paid work too -