Are student halls in London worth it?

[CautiousLurker01]

So DD has offers from KCL and UCL and firmed/insurance accepted. They are in the top 5 nationally for her subject and top 10 globally so she isn’t interested in going anywhere else, before it is suggested. We’re delighted for her. She has had a difficult few years so achieving a place anywhere is huge and we are so proud of her.

However, halls at both unis come in at around £14,500 for a 40 week contract (all bills etc included) and she was keen to ‘get involved’ at college and make friends, become independent etc.

My issue is that, having been a recent PG student myself, all my fellow students made it clear that they commuted to save on costs and the only ‘resident’ students were the overseas ones (and they grouped together by nationality, so all those from India formed a clique of their own - they were all lovely, but kept to themselves socially). Talking to my current supervisors it seems that courses are structured to allow students to be in college a couple of days a week to accommodate commuting and part time jobs, as they know students need the income and work experience on their CVS. We actually live 50mins by train from London, both colleges a short walk or bus ride from Waterloo. My fear is that we will commit to £14.5k a year to live in a 10msq room where DD may not actually meet anyone when she could just as easily meet friends through her course and societies and jump on a train home at night? Saving us around £11k a year.

We will also in Sep 2026 have a second DC studying in London, so we potentially will be paying £28-30kps for two-three years (both hope to do Masters afterwards). My DH works in London 30-50% of the time and potentially has access to funds that would mean he could, in fact, just about afford to buy a 2-3bed flat and use the £2500-3000k a month that we would otherwise be spending on rents by paying towards a mortgage. On paper, this is a no-brainer. DD, and later, DS, would have a flat in London so could mix with friends, be at uni, get a PT job etc but longer term any increased equity in the flat could be released and given to them to get on the property ladder. We have financially planned for this for decades so can afford the £30kpa, though not without sacrifice. Kids will only be entitled to @£3k if stay at home and £6.5k-ish (in maintenance loans) if in London due to household income.

The question is, are we being selfish in seeing this in terms of minimising the debt they’d leave uni with (and, yes, the fact that DH could use it when working up in London, rather than use hotels) and should we fund them both to live in halls so that they get the ‘full uni experience’? They are both incidentally entitled rooms in halls all three years, btw. I have friends whose DCs are loving uni, but have not made friends in halls (or worse, really do not get on with the people in their dorm/house or the floor of their halls) and ended up commuting home every weekend anyway. I am just concerned that living in halls in London will bear no resemblance to my experience of the same in York Uni in the 90s or DH’s experience… at a crippling cost.

Does anyone have DCs in London halls who can reassure me or give me a current picture of what they are like at the moment?

Sorry TL;DR: are Halls in London worth the cost, or will they be full predominantly of (lovely) overseas students who are not doing the same course and have no shared interests with my DD?

@LailaDelaila just realised we were at York at the same time! Probably elbowed you out the way at the Merrydown Promos in Derwent student bar… or the Goodricke Bops (🤦🏽‍♀️!!)

Have they done lots of expensive renovations too? That seems to be what I’m seeing at the KCL ones (or disclaimers about the possibility of noise and disruption due to works currently being carried out!)

No, no renovations … unless you call updating the 80’s job for one from the 90’s!

LOL. I wondered whether it was the installation of en-suites? 🤣

The ws. My son who graduated last summer paid £305 PW for garden halls in his first year and the cost this year is £383 odd, which does seem steep change for the same product.

But it is one of the dearest

Some of the inter-collegiate halls have been refurbished recently.

Yes. My DC who was at International Hall had some fairly spartan accommodation, not refurbished. However, the location was so insanely brilliant (libraries and lectures and seminars all within a few minutes' walk in a fabulous part of London) that the lack of luxuries was unimportant. And they come home every six weeks anyway and can catch up on laundry, beauty treatments etc in their own home.

A lot of DS peers from school are at UCL in their first year. They live in halls and say nobody socialises. The halls aren't built for socialising as they're like a hotel corridor layout with no communal kitchen or dining area. A lot of international students.

I think UCL has a majority of international students.

DS friends are enjoying it because there are so many there from their school that they've got a social group. I'm sure they've made new friends too though.

London unis are a very different experience to outside London and especially campus unis.

It is what you make of it though, it might just take more effort to make friends than in a uni bubble on a campus.

DC is a fresher at one of the cheapest (but still hideously expensive) UCL self-catering halls close to campus.

They’ve not gelled tremendously with their immediate flatmates, although they haven’t had any problems with them either, but have made friends in other flats in the block and had lots of socialising within halls as well as off site.

We were a bit worried that they’d not find their tribe as easily as they might have done in another uni, as an 18yo northern Brit from a state school and a not very wealthy background. But that hasn’t been the case at all - they've made some great friends, with the most incredible variety of nationalities and upbringing

I appreciate this is probably of limited value for OP’s specific situation, but wanted to add our experience for anyone reading with a DC considering London Uni halls.

DS was in International Halls but did not make any friends there. However it was a hop skip and jump from the LSE campus and he got to know loads of people through societies.

One advantage of London Universities is that because people are so scattered, lots happens on campus. Certainly worth spending the first year nearby. After that more friends tend to be made through your course or specific interests soi it matters less. Indeed a quiet bedroom at home is often seen as preferable to a cramped shared flat when working towards final exams. We found that time away from home was a good separation between childhood and adulthood. DS learned that clothes don't get washed unless you load the machine and that the cleaning fairy does not exist.

My son is at halls in London and paying the price you mention. He doesn’t really socialise with his hall as they are all from a certain nationality (not our nationality) and as you say, they stick together. However being near the university allows him to socialise with his class mates, go to events etc. I live in Reading so he could have commuted, but it would have killed his social life. You cannot be spontaneous with your social plans if you depend on catching your lost train

My son's hall (Connaught) had plenty of UK students, as well as some international students e.g. he made friends from the US, Spain. It certainly wasn't dominated by students who spoke their own language. That may be because it's one of the older traditional, cheaper halls, so is less popular with the international students (who tend to be very wealthy and choose the most modern and most expensive accommodation). In second year, many of the wealthy international students go into expensive private halls rather than shared student flats. All of my son's flatmates were from the UK. His hall had a lot of social events - film nights, games nights, table tennis or pool tournaments, etc. Some were organised by the warden, who lives on site, and others by the students.

p.s. He did find that his course (Economics) had a lot of students from China etc. But friends who were doing other subjects didn't have such a high ratio.

DS in contrast had lots of international friends including Chinese. I guess with any group there are some that look outwards and others that stick to the comfort of the familiar. At DS' graduation I talked to a lovely girl from HK who described how difficult she had found her first year. 18 years old and on her own on the other side of the world with a cold climate and different food. She had got over it and, with an Australian boy, started organising weekly social events for their course. She then stayed on for a Masters. There will be others like her and a British student making the first move may be pleasantly surprised.

Chinese students are not a homogenous group. Some will be from SE Asia or Taiwan, others will have grown up at expats and attended international schools or indeed British boarding schools. A school friend of DDs found UCL very difficult as other Chinese students considered him British whilst British students assumed he was one of "the Chinese". Not all are rich either. Parents will club together with expended family to send a bright student to a good University and they will then be expected to repay the investment. (As a landlord I know from experience that one risk of letting to East Asian students is the risk of over-occupation. Three on the tenancy agreement but a lot more actually in the property.) One of DS's friend had picked the LSE for its racial diversity, a big change from being from the only Chinese family in a Welsh village.

DS was into anime-mange and so joined the relevant society, which was almost entirely Asian. The Students Union required each society to have an EDI officer so as one of the few white males, he was nominated. The bonus was that much of the society activity involved cheap meals in China Town. For DS another advantage was that his friends, aware of the financial sacrifices their parents were making, worked vary hard and he got carried along.

Just updating. DD visited and explored both and decided on KCL on the advice of a couple of PG students who’d been to both colleges and were working in one of the halls of residence.

I need not have panicked over the risk of getting stuck with the £14-15k placements as KCL seem to adopt a policy of drip feeding the accommodation every few days so, as long as you are checking the accommodation portal in the AM and PM, you can nab a room in the more reasonably priced locations. We’ve got a room for her in SE1 for just over £10k on a 40 week tenancy, including an en suite. Many of the unis seem to do this or hold off releasing rooms until after the acceptance deadline day (1st June or there abouts) to ensure everyone has the same chance of accessing the full range of accommodation … and, of course, there will be students who didn’t make the grades needed or who change their minds so there is still movement and availability (albeit with less choice) in August.

Most of the halls allow you to book in and have a tour, meet student reps and staff, and also to nose around an ‘apartment’ if there are any students around who are willing. They were when DD visited. Would really recommend doing this as it wasn’t included in the open days or offer holder days, but really allowed her to get a sense of the vibe, to see the students hanging around in the common room and doing their laundry etc. It made it feel real and gave a sense of normal to the place where she’ll be bunking down.

She’s really excited as it will be only first year UGs and will have a good mix of British and international students - but will be close enough to Waterloo to get home easily when needed. Am hoping that with everything on offer up on the South Bank she will be kept busy. Time will tell if she thrives, but she certainly came back from the offer days on a high so 🤞

Both of my adult kids lives in halls in London and it was the best part of being at university for them.
Even kids from London or not far out lived there for the social life.

If KCL give you a time slot for booking you need to be at a computer and ready to go…. When we did this the rooms on the booking page were disappearing before our eyes so we just had to grab any one at the halls we wanted.

This was during Covid so maybe the system is better now.

I have name changed and missed this message in my last incarnation. I didn't go to Derwent or Goodricke ever, I don't think. I was mostly in Vanburgh / the drama barn / Fairfax house, but we must have crossed paths, it was so small back then, what, 3000 students total?