Living at home during university

[Souvenir81]

Do you think kids miss out a lot by living at home during university?

DD wants to go to an university in London; we live in London; she thinks she will move out but I have asked her to check cost of living which she did. I said we can support with around 8k a year.

If she wants to move out I said she will need maintenance loan plus fees loan. If she stay at home we could put some of the 8k towards student fees. Less debt.

Perhaps she can try student accommodation for a year? She is already quite independent, cook her breakfast and lunches, do her laundry, help with shopping, very sensible with money and matured. Prefers socialising with a small group of friends than big parties.

Exactly this.

Have a look at Martin Lewis website, he explains it all on there.

I taught at a London uni (not UoL) 20 years ago and even then lots of my students lived at home. They bonded plenty, I remember two of mine got the train from Essex and Kent and used to walk in to uni from their mainline stations together, one calling at Liverpool Street for the other every day.
I think UoL is more of a campus thing but most of the other unis are more local students.

Imperial or UCL?

@Souvenir81 There are brilliant unis for engineering away from London. What sort of engineering? My DH did engineering and although had engineering mates, also had lots of others too. That’s a good thing in my view.

Im sure those quoting other countries are sincere but we have always had a different uni culture here. My DD1 studied in Italy. One of the best unis in Italy but it had 88,000 students. It’s like a graduation from school to uni with your mates. People do travel longer distances to uni and stay friends with everyone at home as a result. In this country, you cannot necessarily find the uni you need nearby. Those living rurally would be hugely disadvantaged. Last trains are not party friendly nor getting home after the last train. So broadening out life and making choices, sometimes the wrong ones, is part of growing up. Staying at home is mistake proof but dull.

My DC are/will be going away. I recognise that I’m a bit if an academic snob and want them to go to the best universities they can and that means going away from home. My DH and I loved our time in Halls and living in shared houses with friends and have some of our best memories from that period. But at the same time, I recognise that those experiences eee not actually vital for life or our careers.

We were lucky and had a bit of a grant and our parents topping us up a bit. We graduated debt free. I also know that the careers we do could have been achieved by doing degrees local to us and living at home. We would have made friends. We would have lived in shared houses in our early 20s when we started work. Our lives would not have been ruined by not going away.

So I really think that parents who went to uni get muddled between living away for uni as a ‘nice-to—have’ rather than ‘vital for the next stage’ thing.

Maybe it’s a badge of pride for middle class families? We might not like to admit that openly but it is. We like to say our children are away and think about universities at opposite ends of the country and love to hear about their student larks. But the price is so significant often for families who only get minimum maintenance loans but also into the future. Yeah yeah to a graduate tax and not everyone paying it off. But it’s 9% on income over 25k and most of us woukd really rather not pay an extra 9% tax. Speak to any younger colleagues in their 30s who are having families, paying childcare, mortgages and student loans too still whilst starting to earn decent money - they really feel that burden round their necks. It will be bigger for the next generation.

My kids will be going away because despite knowing this stuff, I’m too attached to the dream of going away at 18 to grow-up. But as others say, over 30% of domestic London students are living at home and it’s rising. Some do a year away and then live at home. It is different but they don’t fail to get an excellent degree or have a social life. They might not steal traffic cones for their mantlepieces or live in a mushroom infested house with 5 people who never wash up. They will do without these memories and have great lives still.

Too many people decide their children must have the opportunity to go and that the other option is too awful to consider. But it’s daft for many many families.

@WombatChocolate makes a very good point

Our DC all wanted to go away and we supported /are supporting them
I think students who stay at home do miss out
Sime if my friends DC stayed at home and it was as if they were still at school
For some it might be a better option but to pretend it is the same experience is wrong

@WombatChocolate i think less young adults live in shared houses in their early 20s as many return home to save for a deposit. So by not going away to university they do miss out.

My ds lives at home, it's saving a fortune. He's happy and goes out a few nights a week to meet up, we are so local to his uni it would be crazy to pay for accommodation.

I'm not sure he's missing much to be honest, he's not a drinker or party type and just meets friends to tinker with cars and have a few beers together.

He's able to travel as he has spare money and has been to Holland, France and few trips with his friends. He's also able to work locally and earn. It's almost like he's working more than at uni

I suppose the question is what is the value of the benefit vs the cost.

Living away in your late teens is certainly amazing for most. If you never do that and don’t share a house in 20s, you do miss out on that experience. Is it worth potentially £30k+ of maintenance loans? That’s the question isn’t it.

You rarely meet people who regret going away to uni. You do meet people in their 30s finding their finances a massive struggle due to student debt repayments ramping up at a time they also have childcare costs and mortgages (or trying to get mortgages) - they long for their debts to be gone. At that point, would they rather have gone to uni near home, probably had the same career and know their debts will be cleared much faster as we’re just the fees (or possibly no debt if their parents helped and covered them - which some will do if not mak8ng maintenance payments too) - hard to say really.

It’s hard for teens to see ahead to the implications of student debt in the rest of their life. In lots of schools and colleges going away to uni is the default position and assumed. My own Dc are/will do it. But the point is about whether its a benefit worth paying so dearly for.

I fully agree you miss out. But honeslty, most of us ‘miss out’ on something somewhere along the line that we can’t afford. Rarely are our lives ruined by it. Sometimes it’s better not to have the cost and not have the item or whatever it is.

The ‘missing out’ thing plays a huge part in people’s thinking. That living away student experience is part of the psyche of middle class families because it’s what they did and what middle class teens see as the norm. But it’s based in an economic model that no longer exists, so it’s right to seriously consider it rather than thinking ‘they must go away regardless of the cost’ - we don’t take that attitude towards other hugely expensive spends, but asssess them rationally. That’s all really,

DH has a work colleague who has £60k of student debt, he went to uni in London and he’s from London.

I think it’s easy to forget how easy it was in the past. No fees, minimal debt, cheap rents. Those days have gone.

I have a friend who pushed her son to accepting a foundation year at his uni of choice when he didn’t make the grades. She realises now she should have suggested staying at home, resitting and getting a job and going to uni with money. All he has done now is added more to his massive debts, she isn’t able to give him any money. She admits she got caught up with the idea he needed to go.

For us we have 4 kids. Each will only get minimum loan and the total cost for us to top up each child's loan for multiple years would end up being too much. Have spoken to them about this in advance and tried to give advice with part time work and what we can help with. Eldest has advised the younger siblings that they if they were to get a paid summer internship in 2nd year that they could save the money to move out in year 3.

They may miss out on some stuff, is it worth forking out thousands of pounds? When my DC went clubbing when they were living at home they either stayed over at a friend's or ubered back home. Honestly university is what you as a person make out of it. When DS lived at home in year 2&3 he was actively involved in student life. He has a classmate who also lived at home and just whined about how he hated the uni. DS on the other hand was running 2 societies and fully involved with them and had a great time. Yes he went clubbing a bit less but he still enjoyed his time.

Honestly this scenario only makes sense due to the London home, London uni thing.

We are at this crunch point now. DD will only get the minimum loan, I can't afford to top up as parents are expected because I simply don't have it. We did have savings but best laid plans and all that - we hadn't planned for a divorce. So DD will have to work her socks off at uni. For a variety of reasons she wants to go away but has also applied to universities at home, which financially would be far better but for her personal wellbeing, moving away is the right thing at the moment. It's going to be a massive struggle though, for everyone.

I'm not sure if this applies to children growing up in London, but I know for me the year after graduation was the hardest of my life, applying for jobs, moving city, making friends in a new city without the structure of university around me. If I had not moved away for university I would not have survived moving for my graduate career, and although I ended up back in the city I grew up in there is no way I'd have had the career and life I do if I hadn't moved around a bit in my early 20s.
I find it terribly sad when young people get stuck in dead-end job that doesn't have prospects after graduation. It's a really hard time. Children growing up in London have almost every career opportunity on their doorstep so maybe they don't need to move away for their career.... but then again, it might be nice for some to experience life outside London.

@jennylamb1 my ds has ASD and OCD and is thriving in his first year at uni, whilst living at home. DSA covers taxis there and back because he can’t manage public transport.

He has joined several societies around his interests and for the first time in his life, has a lovely group of friends that all meet up for lunches, go out for evening meals or to the cinema together and a large group of them all met up at Comi-con. As the year has gone on he is spending more and more of his time on campus during the day/evening with his friends, whereas he initially just went in for lectures and society meetings then came straight home. I have honestly never seen him so happy and as a result, his OCD is the most controlled for the best part of a decade.

He is a little older at 21 though, as he took some time to recover from college (his OCD was off the charts back then) did an internship and then had a job for a few months, before taking the summer off to make sure he was in a good head-space to start uni. He was terrified before he went, but it has been the making of him and I don’t think living at home has held him back at all. Plus of course, he is not accruing the same amount of debt as his peers.

I think he may potentially want to move in with a group of his friends at some point, but his is a four year course, plus a placement year, so there’s plenty of time for him to do that when/if he’s ready. Being local it means that we can be on hand for support if he needs it too, which is reassuring.

I don’t think the debt is worth the “experience”. I think a lot of parents still view it through the lens of their uni days and it’s very different now.

It depends what “experience” you want. If it’s getting along with people you live with, sorting out bills and money, planning social events with flatmates, shopping and cooking, being responsible for your own life without parents around every day and, becoming an adult is important, the average student gains. If they want the comfort of home, doing only uni work, then stay at home and save money. It’s inevitable that mates will be on your course, not ones you live with, because you don’t. It’s inevitable that students needing the last train (no night tube or bus to many villages) won’t be going out late with uni friends. Of course if a student doesn’t want such a life, fair enough but staying at home is not the learning for life experience that others get which has value but a cost is attached to it.

Moving out is a big part of the experience and growing up in general.

I think it depends on what city you live in and how close a good university is to you. We are relatively close to Glasgow. 20 minute in car approx 30-40 mins on bus depending on traffic.

Ds stayed home and out of 6 school friends none left home to go to uni. Dd was in a friendship group of 12 at school and only 2 left to go away to uni. Funnily enough both those girls parents are on benefits and therefore they get the maximum amount through SAAS.

My DD is on a mini living away situation - a month in a large flat (11 girls, 4 boys) in Lisbon, all part of the Turing Scheme work experience program (so all expenses paid). They have the rent and travel card paid for and an allowance each week, from which they have to budget food and anything extra (meals out, bit of shopping). There is a teacher living in the flat too, but not in a in loco parentis role (he said he is not banging on doors making sure they are all up on time, for example, and he has his own kitchen and bathroom), but more of a liaison with the work experience side and in case of emergency. They do have a curfew of 11pm/12am weekends. Other than that they are expected to shop and cook for themselves, do their laundry, find out how to get to their work placements, be professional, navigate the area, get on with each other! The majority are sharing rooms. They range between 17-19, but first time away from home for all. Other than that they are all from the same FE college (though not all from the same course), it is almost like uni, just work instead of classes. I wonder if it will influence her choice of uni - she's applied as far away as Scotland and as near as London (where we live).

As Scotland has no tuition fees, clearly Scottish students staying at home is more likely. For those in the Highlands, is the local uni good enough? Or do they get clobbered for maintenance expense due to being rural? Staying at home is only available for some. Often poorer squeezed parents don’t have options richer city dwellers do.

One month in Lisbon out of 3 years is hardly fending for yourself. MFL students are expected to go abroad for a year. How a month benefits anyone much is beyond me. Good fun though but takes money from students who must do the whole year. I’m assuming they are not learning Portuguese and a month is all they get! If so, that’s dire.

Given that even now around 50% of young people don't go to university, and it was much more in the past, the majority of people have always managed to grow up, learn to budget/cook/do laundry for themselves and basically turn into functioning adults without living away from home in term time for three years.

My ds is in year 13 and he's adamant he's not going to uni (but will be looking for a degree/higher apprenticeship once he's done his gap year(s)). However, he's already very independent, he's been travelling around our large city by public transport since 11 and in the last couple of years he's been all over the UK by train with mates. He can find his way to anywhere and has been able to for a few years. He's a good cook and actually stayed at his mate's house for 3 weeks back in October when the friend's dad was away. He had no problem cooking and washing etc. Next year he plans to go travelling around south east Asia. He's been working in a supermarket for the last year and gets to work on time, books annual leave etc and he's already saved a few thousand pounds for a car and insurance when he passes. I think he's already far more independent than a lot of kids his age. I'm definitely not going to force him to take on £50k debt for a life experience I don't think he needs.

I find these "London" threads very strange.

My DC grew up in Central London and both studied in London and elsewhere. London was fine. LSE and Imperial are arguably the best places in the UK to study Economics and Biomedical Engineering and both really enjoyed their courses, which has to be the main point of University. Lots of students live at home which means that social life is centred around the student union, rather than in student flats or City clubs. There were other odd advantages. There are lots of Universities in London so sport fixtures are nearby (DD once trekked to Brighton from Bristol for an away match). Though it is nice to meet new friends it is also nice to keep up with friends from home. If you are really keen on music, or drama or play high level sport there are huge opportunities outside the University itself. University libraries tend to be used and open later: the LSE library is open 24 hours a day, and well used during vacations(and has beanbags - a last resort for if you miss the last train home!) One specific advantage for DS is that he took to working steady hours: leave home at the same time as his dad, days in lectures or the library and then the evening hanging out with friends. We did not see a lot of him, and the discipline of treating studying a bit like a job meant he did very well.

I can see why young people might like to leave home after school. Easy. First year in halls, or take a gap year and work abroad. Our experience, and Covid caused DD to spend more time at home than she had intended, was that a years gap does the trick in learning how to pull your weight around the home as an adult.

Student debt and a much harsher employment environment means that a lot has changed in the 40 years since some DHs were at University. Go for the best fit. If staying at home does not suit you don't. If the best course is round the corner, why not. If it will be a real struggle to afford to live away from home, don't. And so on. There will be others making the same decisions. There will not be a problem making friends.

LSE and Imperial are arguably the best places in the UK to study Economics and Biomedical Engineering and both really enjoyed their courses, which has to be the main point of University. Lots of students live at home which means that social life is centred around the student union, rather than in student flats

This!

Our DC is studying at Imperial and commuting in. Many of the other students are also living at home and so most of the socialising is indeed centred around the University campus and student union/clubs.

In addition, the course is very work intensive so most students don't seem to go out and party very much anyway.

Another benefit of living at home while on such a full on course at Imperial is that they don't have to worry about all the logistics of renting, cleaning, food shopping, cooking after a long day of lectures , labs and seminars! And, of course, it saves A LOT of money.