Distance from home

[splendidlyambivalent]

Very interesting thread on a Facebook site I am on. The poster says she (he?) doesn’t understand why parents want their kids to choose unis within a 2 hour radius. So many replies say it is sensible because of need to support them if ill/ND etc. But a lot of the replies also mention parental convenience (selfish criterion IMHO). My eldest three DC never considered distance - they all went to the best uni for their course (in a place they liked). Their unis were 3, 5 and 8 hours away - despite fact two of my DC are ASD. It was the making of them - rather than asking me to visit to sort out a problem (as they had always done at school), they stepped up and got in the habit of doing it themselves! And when they were ill (freshers flu etc), none asked me to scoop them up and take them home. If it had been serious, my drive would have been a couple of hours longer - so what (unless we are meant to be choosing unis on basis of kids having life-threatening injuries). I just think parents are way too neurotic. Am I wrong? Being so far away from us, my three learnt to problem-solve for themselves and be self-sufficient adults who didn’t pop home constantlt for weekends. Love them to bits and missed them but we all coped not seeing each other for 10 weeks at a time (thank you FaceTime!). They got the maximum out of their uni experience as a result. I ask this question as youngest child about to submit uni application and she has picked Edinburgh, St Andrews, Durham, Lancaster and York - all many hours away from us on south coast!

Oh and I really felt for the poster too - replies along the lines of “we are a very close family so they want to come home regularly”. The sanctimony made me cross - we are also a very close family even though DC went to uni hours away. The OP’s family may well be close too. End of rant!

My dd factored distance in her uni choices as she’s not a big fan of public transport. All of her choices were within 4 hours of home and the one she decided on was a reasonable cost to get home.

She is super independent and it would have been something extreme like a hospital stay that would have me racing to her side. She knows how to deal with colds- she’d been on the planet for 18 years by the time she went to uni.

The train network featured highly in mine and my brothers choices as our parents couldn't drive. Also not London due to costs (I was offered Imperial College but decided against it, where a lot of my friends at school were only allowed London so they could live at home).(ultimately my brother went to Durham and I went to Sheffield.... straightforward train journeys but long ones)

With our elder DD, we do worry she'll pick somewhere too close to home... but we also know some of the best places for what she wants are near where we live! So ultimately, course will come first.

If picking somewhere with certain distance is limiting their career its a problem. If its choosing between similar courses... then why not.

Assuming the site you’re talking about is WIWIKAU you kind of have to take it with a pinch of salt as it’s not really representative. The average parent on there has got a doctorate in helicopter parenting. Based on that site all parents have a breakdown when their child goes to Uni, drive an 8 hour round trip to bring them home every time they have a cold or a cross word with a housemate and spend their days tracking them on Life 360.

The group has its uses but I honestly don’t think it’s representative.

Our girl is around 3 hours drive away.
She really investigated different universities and I drove her to about 12 open days.
She chose the one she attends and we had very little input.

One went further away. We did open days by train so they could understand the journey, as I wasn't going to pick them up other than at the end of the year and they'd have to use the train. Thankfully the Elizabeth line opened and their train journey was much quicker than by road!

My other one has gone somewhere less than an hour's drive but awkward by public transport. Their chiuce.I've encouraged them to sit out the first term to Christmas without coming home but I have visited twice as they need a bit more support.

There certainly are parents who get too involved and can't fathom their child living away from where they grew up. And then there's young people who move 8 hours away despite pre-existing mental health issues where it becomes difficult for parents to support them when things go wrong.

its also important to recognise that Uni is far less of an “immersive experience” than it was 20-30 years ago. A lot more students commute, Unis compress contact hours for lower contact courses in response and a lot more students shuttle between home and Uni to work at weekends or see bf/gf as keeping in touch across distance is so much easier so YP seem to keep a foot in both camps more.

Both my boys chose the best uni for them, and they both also happened to be just an hour's drive away, which I see as a bonus.

A friend's son went 8 hours away and, unfortunately, has needed parental support, so the distance has made that more stressful. Not all DC's land on their feet at uni and, even if they do, they are sometimes knocked off their feet by an unforeseen crisis.

@splendidlyambivalent you are being sanctimonious about your DC's choices because they worked out well for you. If you had needed to drive up in an emergency then of course you'd have done so, but you'd also have suppressed a voice in the back of your mind wishing they were closer. It's only human.

The problem with Facebook groups and Mumsnet is that people have opinions and experiences that are different to yours.

DS1 is 3 hours away
DS2 is 2 hours away
My DD is a10 hour flight away.
Distance was never a consideration, except for DD. No option to scoop her up in an emergency. She has friends and her own self sufficiency, which has grown exponentially since she left in August. But the option she picked was right for her, as we're my DSs' choices.
We are a close family. Cant wait to see them all at Christmas. Visited each of them once this semester. We are busy, as are they.

When I was applying, my mum strongly suggested I rule out anywhere within two hours of home! My parents, and therefore we kids, had a very clear idea of university as an independent experience. They would have been the first to drop everything and come if I'd needed them. I ended up about four hours from home; I went home ill once with a perforated ear drum.
I live in a different area of the country now and an imaginary two hour line would only rule out a couple of universities, and there's no real question that they could live at home. DD1 is about five hours away. DD2 is looking at unis and has ruled out any within three hours (not many - an awful lot of people in our area go to the nearest major city which is three hours away). She's really keen on Edinburgh and St Andrews, which are 9 hours+ in the car. Logistically and financially, I'd probably rather she was closer to home (the train home would cost literally hundreds of pounds!), but I'll support whatever she wants.
I was very sniffy as a young adult about kids who stayed close to home and parents who encouraged it. Now I think it's about what's best for the person (within the financial/logistical limits of what their family can support), and if that means staying closer to home, that's fine.

Back in the dark ages, when students got grants and their fees were paid by the council, we were advised to choose the best course and college for you. ideally 2-3 hours from home, so you could get back if you needed /wanted to, but far enough away that you wouldn't do it every weekend. In my first year, I had a weekend at home during the first two terms, after that I stayed up all term, my life was moving on, all my friends were dispersed over the country so there was little point (other than seeing my parents and getting a free lunch) in visiting my home town.. Obviously the current financial restraints didn't apply (not that we were rich), lectures, tutorials and lab sessions had to be attended, rather than the remote sessions that seem to be available now, so students can often get away with appearing at their college a couple of days a week

I don't think being at a university close to home necessarily means they don't become independent! My DS chose one 1.5 hours from home because it was ranked highest in the subject he wanted to study and he really liked the city. He only came home once in his first year. He's now spending a year studying in Taiwan- is that far away enough for you.😂
People choose their university for a number of reasons- being more than two hours away from home is not necessarily the best one!

ds1 despite going to a university close to home still had the full university experience. The advantage was that it was easy to get home if he wanted to and cheap too. The reality was that after the first term or so he came home only in the holidays. The course he did though was offered by virtually all universities. Likewise he didn't have any hobbies that would have meant a different location was preferable. So really for him going further away would have not offered any real advantage.

My DS is a 4 hour drive away (more if the traffic is bad). I agree with you OP.

My eldest lives 4 hrs away and we are going to visit him today.

My youngest is 16 and will be applying to medicine. With that he is getting advice about where to apply based on grades and UCAT so he can make realistic choices. He will need to go where he is more likely to get in as it’s so competitive. We live in the south west near some amazing unis but I think they are even harder to get in so it’s likely he will be a long way away.

If he was doing a less competitive course then I wouldn’t see the point in him going 5 hrs away to do it. One big reason is that a lot of people stay in or near their uni town so it would be harder to keep in contact with uni friends if he came back to where we are or if he stayed in the uni town he would always be a long way from family. It’s his choice though and he can go where he would like.

All I have advised is to make sure he doesn’t make a wasted choice. He has really good gcse results but probably not good enough for the very top unis for medicine. So it would be pointless applying there.

We live on the outskirts of Greater London, and DC1 went to a London uni, so only an hour away. It meant that he could easily visit home for special occasions like birthdays without having to make a weekend of it, or even stay the night. In uni holidays (including the very long summer holidays) he mostly stayed at his uni accommodation. So he was home for a shorter amount of time than many of his friends who went to universities further away.

For his final year (which can't really be called a 'year' because it only lasted from September to Easter, with 2 reading weeks and a 4 week Xmas break) he saved a huge amount of money by living at home and commuting and/or sofa-surfing with friends after nights out. That worked very well for him.

Not something to rant about really. What you did was the making of your kids. What they did worked for them. People have a wide range of different priorities. The only issue is if you think that going away will be the making of other kids and that they're missing out not doing what you did, or the other posters thinking that other families aren't close just because their kids went to unis further away.

I think in your description of not having to 'scoop up' your DCs etc, you're negatively judging those who did something akin to that, just as you're feeling a negative judgment in others saying their family is close, taking it to mean you're not. It's really people just doing what they wanted to and being pleased with it, and it has no bearing on what you did or didn't do. Fwiw, I moved far away for uni. My cousin never left home. What worked for cousin would never have suited me and vice versa, but there's pros and cons to both choices and as long as it was our choice, all good, no judgement.

Everyone has different circumstances. You also sound a bit sanctimonious about the fact your kids moved a long way away and coped! In my own family, me and three of my siblings went away, but only between an hour and two hours distance. The fourth sibling commuted. One of the siblings who went (an hour) away didn’t cope well and came back every weekend. The one who commuted still needed a lot of support even then and would never have coped living away. The rest of us were fine on the whole/ quite independent.

It’s made no difference in the long run, we’re all fully functional independent adults in our 40s now! After all, the majority of the population still progress to independence without going away to uni.

Theres also the cost implication. Our two are just over an hour away. Things are really tight for us and they need to work - in their first year, they needed to come home easily and cheaply for a weekend/reading week to work (dd now has a job in her uni city). We’d also have really struggled with the cost of taking them and their stuff eight hours at start and end of term and potentially having to stay over. We’ve saved a lot of money with them being nearby.

My DS is planning to go to uni 3 miles away from home. It’s a RG so that helps! 🤣. He’s also decided this because it’s cheaper to live at home. I can’t argue with that logic

DD23 went 90 min away by car , but not a driver, so it was 2 hours by train. She's now living back home as she chose to do her PGCE locally to save money.

But... she actively chose a uni close to home as it was literally the year after all the covid lockdowns. Being close was important to her and her mental wellbeing. We would always support that choice.

Dd24 went the same year... she chose a uni 3 hours away, with a year abroad in Germany. Bit more adventurous, wanted more of a big city life. And again, we would always support that choice too.

Ours are both ~3hrs away by car, slightly more by train. I did suggest Aberdeen might be a bit far (we’re Midlands) but other than that left them to it. Depends if they’re likely to want to come home often for weekends.

DD is 1 hour 45 mins away, her choice
Most of the Unis she looked at were a similar distance apart from Bristol but she didn't like it anyway. I have had to do 1 mercy dash (ill and upset) in the first term and its nice that I can pop down for the day and/or we can meet in another city for lunch/catch up.
if she (or DS when/if he goes to Uni) had wanted to be a long way away thats up to them but if I am honest I prefer they are closer

Some will be finance related. Mine is 4.5 hours drive away. If we drop off at start of term it involves a hotel overnight which is expensive and overnight dog sitting. DD mainly gets train and that can be expensive. Even visiting open days we spent a lot on trains.
Mine hasn’t been home this semester and won’t until 20/12. I’ve been up to visit once. Her friends are same.
It was interesting when she was choosing as my dc had a physical disability and lots of people assumed she would stay local ish.
Most yp at dc’s school stayed within a couple of hours. Sixth form were quite unhelpful with travel to open days - they rang me when we were at an open day at Queen’s Belfast complaining she’d missed last lesson afternoon before - I pointed out we needed to fly to open day they knew she was attending. Only an handful out of year looked at London unis.
Mine wanted a big city, not local and not where everyone from school was going. She knew her mind and picked accordingly and been very happy. She spent 2.5 months working abroad last summer and is applying for semester abroad yr3 on other side of world.
We are very close and message and FaceTime a lot.

My family was one of those that couldn't fathom me living away from where I grew up (and my entire family lived within a 3 mile radius, saw each other at least six days a week, etc.). We were described as being a very "close" family, and going to university was not a choice for me; it was what I was told to do. The only things that I got to choose were the course and the location. I was informed that I was to call home X times a week, on particular days. I moved to the furthest university that would have me, just for a bit of breathing space! The privacy and independence was intoxicating... and yet it was still said that I'd fail and come running home with my tail between my legs. Alas, I stuck it out, and couldn't wait to leave the village again upon graduation! I now live sufficiently far away, and will never go back there to live.

It is considerably cheaper to live at home, and some people prefer that... and that's fine. Students should do what works for them, and if they're not ready to "leave home" (albeit, perhaps temporarily) at 18, then those extra few years give them time to grow in readiness. However, their families should not push them either way to do things that make them uncomfortable, otherwise it may result in MH conditions, or just backfiring.

Just to say for ppl talking about train fares - there are coaches! One of my DC’s gets National Express to and from uni from our nearest city. So do many of his cost-conscious friends when they go home. Train is £££. Coach costs under £30 return for a 6-hour journey each way. They don’t come home in term time as they feel they are missing out if they do (nor do most of their flat of 16 ppl) but it is great for going to and fro each semester.