Accommodation cost impacting university choice - very troubling for institutions like mine

[Tulipgardens]

Name changing for this and wondering whether any one has stats. My sixth form students used to put down unis like Bristol, Bath and Exeter but, over recent years, no longer. Newcastle, Sheffield and Leeds now top choices. London unis nowadays a complete no-no. It has been a marked shift...

DD’s sixth form did Oxbridge trips and one to a uni about an hour away - it was a choice of two - one RG and one not - same day. But I think chosen for convenience not pushing agenda.
Most kids go to northern cities an hour or two away (state grammar)
I found them unhelpful when we did further afield trips - ringing me to enquire where she was when they knew she was going to Open day in Belfast for example (me having to spell out we had to fly to get there). They also commented dc had been to a lot of open days - 7 I think.

@RampantIvy my son did the Oxbridge Liverpool open day too. Really helpful tbh.

Although costs are now soaring this is really nothing new, I went to uni in the 90s and even then i was told by my parents not London as its too expensive. I went to Lancaster.

I couldn’t afford it so didn’t go at all. With hindsight though, if someone had explained student finance better I might have done.

what I see now though is the second and third year rent as much more comparable to the open market private rent which is obviously ludicrous. Then the private rental market was different

Yes i agree there are lots of young people who don't go because the finances scare them or their parents and actually nowadays there is lots of support for poorer students. My son recently graduated from Cambridge. He was one of the poorest students there because there were mega rich students there and then there were students from deprived backgrounds who the university literally throw money at. He was from an average family. He said you can tell the children that have grown up in care they have the most money to spend!

DC is at a grammar school and they are entirely hands off - they have no influence, and make no suggestions or comments on where students apply, and have never arranged a trip to any university (would have been helpful if they had!) Really surprising to me that some schools are so different!

On the other hand the college my son went to for a music btec really promote some of the lower level places. LMA & BIMM do massive marketing there going into college to run workshops etc and almost all their students applied (my own son even applied to BIMM as a back up).

My son's friend wanted to apply to a prestigious conservatoire but college didn't do any references in time for early entry. He ended up accepting a place at LMA and my husband sat down with him one day (my dh is a lecturer at a different conservatoire) and told him you can do better than this, take a gap year and we will help you with your application.

Interestingly, my son applied and accepted a place at a different conservatoire and since then several students n the year below him also applied and got places there after they had seen his success.

So schools and colleges can and do have a big influence on where students apply to.

Half of all Winchester College students go to Oxford
Schools often look after themselves not pupils

@Talkinpeace Not any more. Their Oxbridge numbers have halved. However there’s always USA and Imperial and LSE to go to.

Schools often look after themselves not pupils

This is it in a nutshell.

They just want to look good, so that they can boast about past successes. They continue with the RG narrative, they encourage pupils to do 4 A levels when in many cases 3 is better and they boast about the 100% pass rate at high grades when in fact their 6th form is very selective.

I discouraged DC from applying to London universities due to cost but did not put any other restrictions on their choices. School were very neutral too. They organised mini buses for half a dozen open days but I don’t think anyone saw that as an endorsement of those unis.

DS applied for Economics and, in hindsight ruling out London was a mistake. He applied to Cambridge and four non London unis but wan’t sure about any of his possible insurance choices. If he hadn’t got into Cambridge, he would have taken a gap year and applied to LSE.

In theory I think DC should apply for the best courses open to them and I share the OP’s concern that, outside of Oxbridge where rooms are provided and subsidised for all years, this is being undermined by the cost of the private student rental market.

@Twoshoesnewshoes DS is 1st year UWE and in city centre private halls, all that was available, since he originally deferred his place to go travelling but changed his mind a week before Uni started! We’re very keen to get accommodation bill reduced for next year, when you say UWE is easier for accommodation, please can you say how far in advance you started looking for year 2 accommodation? Was it before Christmas, like I’ve been hearing or can we leave until next year? Thanks for any info.

My DD is in Bristol at Uni of Law and also in expensive city centre private halls. Where are you looking for next year as this is something we need to start thinking about too

A lot of UWE students live in Fishponds for 2nd and 3rd year but that's not convenient for Bristol Uni.

No they don’t. @Talkinpeace

Half of all Winchester College students go to Oxford

Really @Talkinpeace ????

2024 destinations show it as 13% for Oxford and Cambridge combined.

13%

15 Winchester students in total - that's the actual number not the % - went to Oxford in the most recent cohort. So a single digit percentage of the cohort.

Making 50% just to Oxford a quite spectacular exaggerartion. I struggle to understand what coud possibly motivate you to post such a wildly in accurate statement.

https://www.winchestercollege.org/learning/exam-results-and-universities

Interestingly in the period 2010-2018 Winchester saw 33% of its students heading for Oxbridge (18% to Oxford and 15% Cambridge). Though that is still a long way off 50% to just Oxford.

https://www.winchestercollege.org/assets/files/uploads/WinColl_4974_LeaversDestination_v1.0.pdf

Maybe the poster meant Westminster

Maybe. https://www.westminster.org.uk/there-is-so-much-more-knowledge-to-acquire-a-level-pupils-set-for-uni-following-outstanding-exam-results/ A bigger percentage to Oxford but still way off 50%

@boys3 What the post about 50% to Oxford from Winchester shows is how easy it is to peddle false information and most will believe it without question. Then Westminster was added with more false stats.

The reason RG plus matters is that their grads earn a premium over others according to the IFS. So of course schools see them as a measure of success.

To answer the UWE query, this uni is not in the most expensive area of the city. Bristol uni is. Most students pick up from friends when to start looking and when agents start advertising. I would say best term is good enough but students should ask around and look at web sites. There’s no need for uwe students to be in the most expensive areas.

I am not sure that Westminster figures quoted are that inaccurate. If you look at the link, 86 pupils out of of 201 went to Oxbridge, whilst a further 18 went to elite US schools.

The pattern is not that different to DCs years, a decade ago. Impressively DD's year had eight Harvard acceptances, which was the highest of any school in the world that year, even in the US. The cohort included one of her friends who rejected a Cambridge place in favour of the chance to take a join honours.

If anything Oxbridge was played down. Instead pupils were encouraged to do their own research, with a day off timetable in Yr 11 to look at possible University courses to then inform their A level choices. If the Courtauld had the best course, great. The link shows that, as then, very large numbers went to London (57 this year, including 23 to Imperial and 22 to UCL). Staying in London after a schooling in central London was not idea, but the priority was finding the best course.

What they were encouraged to do was to treat it as a two year process, and apply for the most suitable courses for them. This was important for DC who were aiming for medicine and economics where having the right grades does not guarantee an offer. As @ofteninaspin suggests, economics courses vary and LSE is probably the best fall back for someone aspiring for Cambridge. Both are a bit of a lottery, even for very strong applicants, so add UCL, Warwick and Imperial to the mix.

Equally in Bristol the trick surely is to agree with potential flatmates in advance what your priorities are.

One of DDs friends was on a low budget, and they realised that you cant have everything: location, price and quality. They ended up in a real dump. Cheap but centrally located. Fine in that it suited them. They were also very careful about utilities etc, as well as ensuring that they left the place far cleaner than when they arrived, and saved a lot that way.

There is also no rule to say students need to live next to the University. Richer students can but not everyone is rich. In her final year DD lived in Bedminster and cycled in. She preferred the area to expensive Clifton.

UWE students surely don’t want to be in Clifton?!

Some do! But definitely not the norm. As I said before Fishponds is the usual UWE area of choice.

Back to the thread topic - accommodation - this is an interesting report

https://image.comm.cushmanwakefield.com/lib/fe37117171640578741271/m/1/CW+Student+Accommodation+Report+2023+Low+Res.pdf

comes from https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-kingdom/insights/uk-student-accommodation-report if the link to to pdf does not work