Londoner not wanting to go to uni in London

[Acheeserollplease]

my DD is London born and bred - loves it here but wants to sample uni elsewhere. Trouble is she wants law - so cannot disregard KCL and UCL - arguably the most prestigious unis after Oxbridge and Durham for law. Would it be bonkers for me to suggest she lives in London halls even though we live in Westminster?!

I think it cuts both ways @ThisUniqueDreamer

There are Londoners who have no idea about life outside of London and there are country folk who have never been to London.

I'm an ex Londoner living in rural Yorkshire and have no wish to live in London again.

Warwick?

Agree with you @ThisUniqueDreamer- my London children have friends from so many different countries, religions, and ethnicities, far more so than my brothers’ children who live scattered around the UK and have only local friends who (mostly) look and sound just like them.

I grew up rurally and wanted to give my children a broader outlook, idyllic though my childhood was.

Anti London crap is a feature of MN but that doesn’t make it any less stupid.

Oh, the irony 🙄

Where all the foreign students work after they graduate?

If they stay in the UK it's London

we dont know because they do not integrate with the rest of the students ime

It’s obviously not true that no overseas students integrate. It’s a mix. Some obviously stay and work here and others prefer to go home. Most Chinese students go home. If they have been to school here first, many stay after university because they are integrated into UK life. The only issue that can arise is where universities have an overwhelming number of overseas students on a course.

nobody said No overseas students integrate

@HelenWheels you said “they do not integrate”. So I think that was a pretty clear statement.

I don’t know about this course but we’re in London and Ds wanted to live out of home. He’s gone somewhere else but if you can afford it and she wants to be with friends in London I’d go for it.

Ds is having a brilliant time and part of that is living with friends, and all that comes with it.

you are right! although i did say ime

We live within a short commute of London and none of mine wanted a London uni (even though we said we would pay for halls).

It did mean they then had limited choice as to where to apply to (especially if they also ruled out Oxbridge)

Living at home whilst at uni is probably more common for Londoners who stay put than in general - but I always think England is unusual in comparison with other countries where it is more the norm to go to a local uni.

@Decorhate it depends on what the local university is like though. My DD studied at Bologna. It had 88,000 students. Do we want that? What about if your local one is in the bottom 10 and you are very bright? Maybe we’ve had success as a country because we match university to academics?

Maybe in other countries there is more consistency in the quality of universities?

I think you have to let her choose her own uni. She's the one who will be away for 3 years and she has to be happy.

My DD is going to Edinburgh, it's a long way from her home town but it was her choice.

I've heard Leeds is good for law, and fairly straight forward on the train.

@Decorhate Probably more private universities in some countries. The French have the grand Ecoles that are elite. They certainly don’t have a single tier system. We have always had students moving away to go to university. It’s what happened when halls of residence were built centuries ago. It’s been uk university culture and anyone living far from a university had to leave home. In 1950 we only had 18 universities. We had a lot more by 1970 but many needed to be residential at the universities because it enabled choice. We seem to like choice.

This is a real dilemma for London bred children. One of our DC made friends with another student in their halls of residence who had been brought up in west London but wanted the full halls experience. I'm not sure it worked very well and I suspect this particular student would have been better off going to Edinburgh.

No. The whole point of universities is that they aren't comprehensive!

We live in London and while my DD did apply to one here I’m really glad she is going somewhere else (Durham). She has really ‘spread her wings’, which she would not have done at home (main reason for a London uni would be to live at home and not get the maintenance loan). Rents are such that if she got a job here after graduating she’d have to live at home anyway so this is really her time to be independent.

For us, family wise we did not want to fork out £thousands for study when they could receive arguably a world leading education in London.

DH and I both come from middle class backgrounds but his family have lost their link to the land and have only lived in large cities. They view themselves as very international (him and his siblings were born in 3 different countries) with 'friends from so many different countries, religions, and ethnicities'. However, they only mix with a very narrow slice of middle class international set who are very educated and as a consequence they have no depth to their social skills. When we got married and they came to the the island I grew up on they were like fish out of water, it was kind of hilarious how culturally lost they were. DH isn't quite as bad but e.g. if we have any trades in I deal with them because he not good at talking naturally to people outside of his milieu.

Having friends who have different skin colours or different religions but are the same social class, lived in the same city and went to the same school/university/workplace as you and then boasting about your cultural diversity is pretty racist actually.

@LollipoddIf dc go to one of the elite universities , that’s true. Others in London are nowhere near that description. Just staying local isn’t always best.

They do/did go to the elite ones. They aren't going to Birkbeck, Westminster or City

Classist?

Good point though.