Is it becoming more common to stay closer to home for uni?

[ClementinePancakes]

DS is year 12 and just starting to research some uni courses. He particularly likes (on paper) Southampton and Swansea, so we have started planning to visit in the summer. They are both pretty far from us, about 6 hours at least.
Everyone we have told this to has reacted with horror, because they are so far away.

I accept if he does end up at one of them, the drive at the beginning and end of term will probably be a two day undertaking with overnight stay, yes, a bit of a pain but not that horrifying.

Both my brother and sister were at uni a similar distance away, they didn’t really come home during term time (but then I didn’t either and I was nearer home - I didn’t really know anyone who went home at weekends). Is this the difference? Are students more likely to come home at weekends than they were 30 years ago? I suppose it could be for weekend jobs etc. Or are there other reasons if there is a trend to stay closer -are there cultural differences across the UK?
I get staying at home and commuting for cost reasons, but I’m talking more about moving away, but not far.

Most seem to be around two hour drive around.

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HEPI_Somewhere-to-live_Report-121-FINAL.pdf

Reality somewhat differs.

My youngest is at a uni in the north while we live in the south. He chose it because he loved it when we went to see it. He is happy there, but did say last time he was home that he wishes now he wasn't so far away...though I think it's the dog he misses more than us

In parents' generation (postwar) going to the local university and living at home was more usual

In the post-WWII period, going to university at all was unusual. Only 3.4% of young people went to university in 1950 and 5% in 1960. Hardly anyone in my sixth form had parents who had gone to university. Those of our teachers who had been to university had mostly lived away from home.

as per the HEPI report link about 20% of those who want to Uni in 1960 lived at home. About the same percentage as now, though of course far more now go to Uni. Around 36% of school leavers in the last cycle. And we now have far more universities.

I think it’s always depended on your background & circumstances.

30 years ago my parents told me I could only apply to places in the midlands, wales & north west/north east due to costs.

I live in a fairly deprived area with many 1st time in higher education families. A lot of young people stay closer to home.

the young people from more affluent families or whose parents are university educated tend to look further afield.

The University I studied at is a 20-minute walk from my parents' house.

You may find Scottish and Welsh uni's have more local people (including going home for the weekend) as they don't pay fees (they do if they go to an English uni)

Welsh students do pay fees

definitely tuition fees still due in Wales. The maintenance loan (and grant) in Wales is very different to England though which may be the confusion.

fairly confident the vast majority of students at Aber aren’t local. 😀

@Jellyslothbridge see my post from 17:10

Back in 1982, I only applied to universities in London, which was where I lived. However, I was already married at that point, plus I had already done the leaving home in Staffordshire to move to London bit, to do nurse training.

We now live in that seaside-y unitary authority in the bottom right hand corner of Essex; between them, our DC looked at universities from York and Leeds in the north, to Exeter in the south West, with Birmingham, Warwick, Norwich, London, Sussex, Southampton, Reading and Bristol in between. The elderly two chose Birmingham, which when DS started there, was a 3 and a half hour drive or train journey. Over time, the drive started to take much longer; I can think of at least three trips there or back that have taken five hours or more (both there and back again one day back in those wacky times four years ago when staying overnight just wasn't an option). Train has generally been okay, although there was one evening when DS1's train into London was so delayed that he wouldn't have made it to Fenchurch Street in time for the last train home, and I ended up booking him into a hotel for what remained of the night.

DS2 fell in love with Norwich and UEA; it normally takes about 2 and a half hours by car, with the rail journey varying according to the route taken. I think DS2 likes the version where he gets a lift either to or from Chelmsford with a nice lunch thrown in...

Re Wales - there are grants available for students completing their degree at least partly in Welsh, and for medical students via the NHS. This is definitely an incentive for average students with a range of uni options to stay in Wales. The student loan system for Welsh students, wherever they study, is much less painful at this stage for which I am very grateful (but leads to a larger amount owed in the end, on a steeper interest rate).

Current favourites for that seaside-y location:

Anglia Ruskin
Essex

those two account for near 20% of DCs

UEA
Nottingham
Canterbury Christ Church
Kent
Loughborough
East London
Greenwich
Brighton

the next 8 get to 40%

13 more including Exeter, Warwick, Bath, Southampton, Kings and UCL get to 60% of DCs accounted for.

In contrast, and bearing out points a number of pps have made, another coastal area - Redcar - sees just two unis - Teeside and Northumbria - account for 60% of its DCs at Uni. With ten unis accounting for 80% of Its DCs. Back in Essex the 80% are spread between nearly 50 different universities.

DS is 7 hours away (similar whether by car or train). However, in the event of a phone call starting with “I’ve been arrested…” we could just about do it in 5.5hrs.

Our local uni isn’t great, nor does it offer the change of scheme he needed. He didn’t fancy the nearest bigger uni as I went there. The other nearest uni is Cambridge and that really wasn’t an option.

So, he’s right on the other side of the country. The majority of the student there aren’t local- most seem to be West Midlands or North West England. There obviously are Welsh speaking students as the uni has Welsh language halls and promoted the possibility of taking your exams in Welsh.

My Dc will be 4 hours train ride from home when they start Uni next Sept. For us that is small fry as we've lived in the US and they have grown up there. So a UK train ride of 4 hrs versus flights all over the place and drives of 12+ hours is not comparable.

Amongst my children and friends, there are 2 groups, those that go to a local uni and actually live at home, mainly because of costs but sometimes not wanting to move away, and those that have moved away and distance wasn’t a factor in their decision.

My bad. It was definetly more cost effective for the people we know in Wales to attend uni in Wales.

At school dd went about with 11 other girls, out of the 12 girls they all went to uni and only 2 left home to go to uni, bizarrely the 2 with parents on benefit and who would get the most financial help eg bursary loans etc.

in dds uni circle of friends of 11 people only 3 don’t live at home.

both dd and ds stayed st home to go to uni. We have 4 universities within an hours bus journey , both dd and ds chose the uni which is 8 miles from our home.

Coming from Auckland, New Zealand, I don't think it's the problem with kids staying home leading to a lack of student life. When I went to U of Auckland in the 90s, we had a huge portion of students from Auckland. It's the largest city in NZ, and it's the top choice for everyone from Auckland. All of my friends were locals and no one stayed in the halls. We stayed at the labs till late and worked in the libraries too. We also went to each other's houses and worked together.

DH was from outside Auckland and he hung around with students who lived in halls and student accomodations.

I think the difference maybe like local primary and secondary schools, where all your friends are living locally. If most students are in halls and student areas, then those who live at homes are isolated as they are living away from everyone else. However, if in some big cities like London and Manchester, and if they have enough local kids like when I went to university, you will have a large community London kids to hang around with.

Interesting - we've never been told any of that though not directly applicable.

We're near the English border - and many here go to nearish English Uni just as much as the nearish Welsh ones.

England or Wales my DC would have been paying tuition fees but the grant systems is different here - so is the students disability grant office.

A lot of the careers advice though does seem to be stay local - but mine have looked at SW, Midlands and NW England.

So boys3 figures suggest with NW and SW for Wales make sense for me - travel times and distance. We could from our bit of Wales get to London fairly quickly but cost ruled that out - DH 30 years ago studied there and everything was a bit more expensive so didn't think it a good idea.

When I went to uni thinking about it the vast majority of us went somewhere within 2 hours but that will be partly because in the north west there are loads of options, including in Yorkshire and the Midlands, that weren’t very far away.
if you’re in a far flung corner of Cumbria or the Highlands or Cornwall you will have very limited options that aren’t a significant journey away

LOL at describing one of the major towns in Fife as the "back of beyond". Tell me you're English without telling me....

DH went to Cambridge 1.5 hours, I went to The University of Birmingham 4 hours. DS has a degree apprenticeship and can still live at home as the University is a 45 minute drive away and earns 34k PA, we were delighted when we knew he would have zero debt.

I say go to the University best suited, I wouldn’t consider distance.

We took our son to Uni open days all over the country. He finally chose the nearest to our home, less than 10 miles away! Not because it was the closest, it was because it did the course he wanted, was very highly rated, and he loved the campus. He never came home at weekends! Being so close was pretty irrelevant. He'd come home for the duration of the holidays and that was it. He didn't need to live in Uni accommodation on campus as he could have commuted daily from home, but he wanted to live there. He wanted to stay at weekends to do things with his flat mates.

Yes, it was handy on moving in/moving out days as it was a very short drive for us and we could do it in more than one run, in fact, making a weekend of it rather than one big move every time.

We're actually glad he "embraced" independent living despite being so close to home as it's made a man of him to be independent (cooking, laundry etc) and he made lots of friends he wouldn't have made had he lived at home and commuted.

Ironically, he's had to move further away for his graduate job, a good 2-3 hours drive or train ride, but he actually comes home more at weekends now as there's nothing to "entertain" him in his new city.