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.

However plenty of London dc are happy to go to Durham or Edinburgh. This is because they know enough of their tribe will be there.

I suppose a starting point about Durham might be that despite it being one of the least socially diverse universities in terms of its UK undergrads it is conversely and maybe unexpectedly one of, if not the most, geographically diverse, in terms of where they all come from.

But of course once you start diving deeper the murkier things become.

Students from London make up just under 16% of Durham undergrads. For context students from London are just over 19% of all UK (full-time) undergrads, or put another way only slightly less than the percentage of all UK undergrads from "The North" - defined as North West, North East and Yorkshire & Humber regions.

However 25% of those London DCs at Durham come from just three London Boroughs - Wandsworth, Richmond and Hammersmith & Fulham. 9 London Boroughs in total account for 50%.

Edinburgh is a bigger university and so whilst an almost identical number of DCs from London are undergrads there as are at Durham in Edinburgh they make up 13% of the Edinburgh UK undergrads. Again just three London Boroughs - though with Kensington and Chelsea replacing Hammersmith & Fulham in this instance - account for 25% of London DCs at Edinburgh and just seven in total account for 50%.

A lot of the decisions are based simply on accessibility by public transport. Nothing to do with northern kids being too thick for certain universities or being intimidated by the dazzling brilliance of southern kids.

Durham and London students is a good example of my point about public transport. It’s a direct train from Kings Cross and only takes a few hours. Easy peasy. Both my DC went with their sixth forms to visit Oxbridge and it’s a hellish journey by train. DC2 looked at Bristol which was also a nightmare.

Absolutely. I went to Heriot Watt (Edinburgh) from Nottingham and it was hideous to travel to by public transport. Getting onto the (at the time) GNER line took about three connections. It would have been quicker from London.

When I went to university in the 1990s it was really normal for students to be allowed to park cars on campus if they lived in halls. This seems to be really rare now.This makes public transport access from home all the more important.

I think these are a few valid points ⬆️.

Why do I think fewer kids go to Oxbridge from the North? It’s well documented isn’t it.

Overall there are much lower application rates to Oxbridge from northern students. There are a concentration of high-performing schools in London and the South East that have the process of applying to Oxbridge sorted, it’s built into the school journey, on the radar very early. That would be unusual in the North.

I think that many kids from the north (generalisation) perceive that Oxbridge is “not for them”. There’s much less exposure to Oxbridge outreach programs in the north (something that is on an improvement pathway).

All this results in a self-perpetuating cycle where fewer northern students apply and get accepted.

When I think back on my own career, I moved straight to London post uni. The prospects here were grim in comparison. That’s not the same in 2025. I could now have an equally bright future/access to similar opportunities in the north/without moving to London.

I think the young people of today see that, see those opportunities closer to home and that translates to university choices.

In DC1’s case - they thought ‘why should I go to a uni far away when I can catch a bus/train to a world class uni 20 miles away and avoid £10k a year in living costs’. Seems like a sensible choice, as I said before a few of their friends have made the same choice.

It isn’t led by unaffordability either in the case of DC1/their friends. The ranking of northern universities has a huge influence. In addition to sitting in a healthy position in league tables, you also have plenty of schools that are viewed as outstanding, example.

Lower application rates might partly be a problem that's built in from the last generation (80s/90s grads) when pretty much everyone with ambition had to move to London. It's their kids who are applying to Oxbridge now.

I'm northern and went to Oxford. Almost all of the northerners I knew there went on to either London or America afterwards, they didn't go back north. Similar with my school friends, none of those who did "well" at school stayed in what is now considered a major metropolitan destination city but was then somewhere to flee from.

"Why do I think fewer kids go to Oxbridge from the North?"

@CloseYourRingStress In my case (35 years ago, North East) it was a lack of self confidence, and limited knowledge of Universities generally (first generation applicant). My teachers didn't know much more about it. My school did take a group of us on an open day visit to Oxford, but back then there was no special outreach programme to encourage us to apply or to explain the college system. I remember looking round a few college buildings and reading a prospectus but that's about it. It was also a long way from home, and my mum (who didn't go to uni herself, and worried about me) probably told me everyone there would be posh.

These days, there are outreach programmes and lots of encouragement. But Oxford and Cambridge are still very much in the South, so distance will always be a factor. Also, the idea of Oxbridge is associated with the likes of Boris Johnson and pals so I think many young people who are politically minded and left wing simply see it as uncool. I have known adults who seem embarrassed to tell people they went to Oxbridge and others (inverted snobs) who would almost certainly think twice about employing someone who went to Oxbridge (discriminatory, I know).

I agree with this.

The fact/perception that bright young people have to move away from their home area to reach their potential has massively contributed to the decline of former industrial areas. Some of those areas have now re-generated through investment, but they have a higher proportion of first-gen uni students, who are more likely to be modest in their ambitions.

I recognise that description of the 90s. More recently I think there is some movement away from London simply because it’s cost prohibitive for a lot of graduates to base themselves there. I have seen more and more young people especially in industries which are prestigious but financially insecure (creative industries etc) moving to Manchester.

I am that 90s cliche - London followed by a stint in the US, then Europe, back to London, home to the north.

Yes, Manchester, Leeds and the north in general offer endless opportunities that weren’t here in the 80s/90s. Just look at the Bank of England in Leeds, Civil Servants in Darlington as examples.

there are some fairly fundamental systemic problems that create and largely still perpetuate the “North” / “South” divide, (and disappearance the Midlands within that broad generalisation) .

The Centre for Cities provides some useful overviews in terms of wages; productivity; knowledge economy etc with their latest annual report out today.

Then we have the whole “points make prizes”, and we know just like the economic imbalance there is a similar regional imbalance when it comes to A level results. Which matter when many courses, and certainly the most competitive ones at the higher ranked unis will be wanting As if not a mix of As and As. Just looking at the 2024 A level results in London 31.3% A or A, compared with 23.9% in the North East, and 22.5% in the East Mids.

so not a level playing field from the outset. Then throw in added factors such as

• accommodation costs,
• maintenance loans falling behind inflation
• household income thresholds in England unchanged for over a decade, and for nearer two decades in terms of entitlement to the maximum loan,
• general affordability given the cost of living challenges
• practical aspects that other pps have pointed out such as good public transport links

and it’s not difficult to see why there are the disparities.

https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/cities-outlook-2025/

The Centre for Cities report containing a lot of truths some may find inconvenient.

The graphs and various info graphics really are worth a look.

https://feweek.co.uk/a-level-results-2024-8-key-trends-in-englands-data/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20published%20by,per%20cent)%20since%20last%20year.

plenty of good sources for A level result disparities. This provides that regional breakdown and the splits back to 2019. Results in London moving further ahead of the rest,

@boys3 this "fairer index" of schools puts the results of many northern schools into perspective: https://www.northernpowerhousepartnership.co.uk/northern-powerhouse-launches-third-edition-of-fairer-schools-index/

It references work by Bristol uni which proposed an "Adjusted Progress 8" measure taking into account pupil age, gender, ethnicity, EAL, SEN, FSM, and residential deprivation. Key findings are:

• Adjusting for pupil background would see the national league table rankings of almost a quarter of schools (23.7%) change by over 500 places.
• Adjusting for pupil background would lead 48% of schools judged ‘Well Below Average’ under Progress 8 to move up out of this banding.
• The high average Progress 8 score seen in London more than halves when adjusted for pupil background. This is principally due to these schools teaching high proportions of high-progress ethnic groups. In contrast, the low average Progress 8 score seen in the North East improves substantially after adjustment due to the high proportions of poor and White British pupils taught in this region.
• Other dramatic changes are seen for grammar schools and faith schools whose high average Progress 8 scores reduce substantially once the educationally advantaged nature of their pupils is considered. In contrast, the low average pupil progress seen in sponsored academies improves once the disadvantaged nature of their pupils is recognised.
• Progress 8 effectively punishes schools teaching high proportions of disadvantaged pupils for the national underperformance of these groups.
• Progress 8 can therefore be argued to give too much emphasis to schools, rather than Government or society, as primarily responsible for the national underperformance of these groups. In contrast, adjusted versions of Progress 8 can be viewed as rebalancing the responsibility more on society and Government, rather than schools.

They are making a case for the DfE to formally adopt this measure and report it alongside Progress 8.

I moved from the north to the south for university, and then lived in Europe for a while before coming back to the south/south west. However, I did that on a reasonable student grant at a time of lower rents.

My DS is now going the other way. Partly it's driven by the subject he wants to do, but he's ruled out London on cost grounds and the accommodation and cost of living will be much cheaper where he's thinking of going. He could have lived at home and gone to a local university that's very well ranked for his subject, but he really doesn't want to. Maybe he'll do that if he does postgrad.

Then UCAS published its 2024 end of cycle report just before Christmas

https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-end-cycle-data-resources-2024

The dashboard is pretty good, and there are lots of data files that are available for download for those who really want to get into the detail. Although not as far as I can see one for progression rates by parliamentary constituency which has been included in previous end cycle releases, and can be a bit of an eye opener.

headline message in England 37.2% progression for 18 year olds to Uni. Slightly below the pandemic peak, but above the 2019 level. But….,

London continues to be way ahead of any other English region at 51.5% And also above its 2022 level.

13 - THIRTEEN - percentage points ahead of the South East, and over 20 points higher than the North East figure. The gap with the North East progression has doubled as compared with 2015.

London was 38.7% in 2015, the North East 27.9%, the latter barely moving and standing at 29.9% in 2024.

other England regions 2015 and 2024 figures

North West 31.6% and 34.6.%

Yorks & Humber 29.9% and 32.3%

East Mids 28.3% and 33.8%

WestvMids 30.0% and 35.3%

East of England 31.0% and 36.3%

South East 31.8% and 38.4.%

South West 27.6.% and 30.1%

London 38.7% and 51.5%

Thanks for that link @arduous it makes for interesting reading -,admittedly I’ve only skim read the report.

I’m not wholly convinced by the argument around “if only our schools had more pupils who didn’t have English as their first language it would be so much fairer and we’d do so much better”. Although the implied need to address the systemic barriers I’d wholly support.

Progress 8 clearly had its limitations, but I’m not convinced that by just changing the metrics there will be a transformative improvement in real world economic outcomes.

They're not saying "if only our schools had more pupils who didn’t have English as their first language it would be so much fairer and we’d do so much better" ... quite the opposite in fact, as children with EAL generally do better than those without.

Progress 8 compares students results to their peers with similar baseline grades. The proposed adjusted P8 measure does the same, but also compares results to peers with similar characteristics. Therefore children with EAL are compared with other children with EAL; children from deprived areas are compared to other children from deprived areas, etc.

@arduous the dangers of a superficial skim read. Clarification appreciated.

I think it depends on the child and the subject. DD1 lives at home (did a year in halls and a year in digs and then chose to come back as the fridge here is magically refilled and the laundry fairy magically cleans her dirty clothes). Her choice of location is that the the 2 top institutions in the world for her subject are in London so why would she go elsewhere. I know a few others who chose Imperial and LSE for similar reasons. DD2 is a 2 hour train journey away. Most of their friends are either in a similar radius or a lot further - Edinburgh, Durham, St Andrews or Exeter.

We live very close to northern city which has a uni where dc’s subject ranks the highest in country. They went hours away instead ( more north!) purely because they wanted to discover a new city and area.
They never come home in term time as it’s not really the culture to do so at their uni. Everyone seems to just go home for holidays. It seems to have a high proportion of southerners there. Dc has had northern accent mocked occasionally.
Their sibling has SEN and went to (lived away) at v nearby uni. They came home a hell of a lot as they struggled so much. Looking back, I think they struggled more because they kept coming home tbh . It was hard to discourage though.

There's always been a trend in Scotland to stay local for uni. Living away was more of an English habit.

But with the much increased cost these days & lack of contact hours staying far away does t make as much sense esp since lots needs jobs year round.

It's not an "English habit", no. It is common in many developed countries.

Scotland is a relatively small country so a Scottish student who goed to another city in Scotland is still relatively close to home.

This HEPI research paper though sets out that it is much more prevalent here than in the majority of developed countries @arduous

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

it does date from 2019 though I’ve not seen any subsequent research published that fundamentally contradicts its findings. If you have it would be great if that could be shared.

Scotland is not that small. More than 2/3 the size of England?