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!

Not everyone studies in a city or has parents living near a hub.

My dd studied on the outskirts of a city so used a coach when the train strikes were happening a couple of years ago and had a good experience but in the case trains are faster, stop closer to home and she still needed to pay for a taxi from
the coach station to home as I was at work. She also paid about £30 return for a 2 hour journey- is £30 like their ceiling fare?

Nope. DS has got a single coach fare to uni for £9 something sometimes. Irrelevant if train is faster - they are students and can roll with a bit of inconvenience! If not now, when? Hasten to add that we are not hair shirts - each of our three has a pretty generous living allowance (£130 a week after rent and bills) but they have to fund every little thing out of that and I have urged them to avoid trains and Ubers in favour of coaches and buses (and walking!). He gets coach home and then has to wait for bus.

I think you're being quite simplistic about this.

DS is studying in a small city. Yes, there are coaches - that go to other cities. But we live rurally with no bus station anywhere for miles around. DS can't take his car to the city he's studying in as there's no parking. Getting a train or us collecting him is the only way for him to travel to or from uni, so it's a good job he doesn't want to come home a lot!

Also, his uni is a couple of hours away - which presumably you feel is too close? We don't see him much, but we Whatsapp often. But - he went inter-railling the day after his last A-level (organised entirely by him with military precision), so perhaps that's an acceptable level of independence?

People do things differently... although I do agree that too much support or molly coddling does young people no favours and doesn't help them become independent.

I think people are aware there are coaches. This isn't some big news that suddenly changes people's minds about the distance thing. You're being a bit evangelical about this instead of seeing that people simply have different views, priorities and preferences.

My dd was wavering between two options, and was originally leaning towards one because of distance - one was about an hour from home, the other more like 3.5 hours. In the end, after going to the offer holder days, the distant option won out as it was just a better fit for her.

I wasn't concerned about the distance. I can get up there if I need to.

Nope. DS has got a single coach fare to uni for £9 something sometimes. Irrelevant if train is faster - they are students and can roll with a bit of inconvenience!

Again, irrelevant to you. You're starting to sound like one of those people who can't think beyond their own experience. Which is probably why you took such offence about the 'close family' comment assuming it was some slur on your family when that person was just remarking about their own set-up. Why can't you just be pleased things worked out for your DC and not proselytise to others on the assumption that they haven't had thoughts about coaches or that they need to scoop up their DC and mollycoddle them. Back in the 90s, I had several friends who went to unis far away (by coach!), hated it, dropped out and moved home. In the 60s my mum went to a uni that was less than 2 hours away and still got homesick and still talks about the misery of it and wanting to move back. I moved 6 hours away and loved it. Simple case of different strokes/folks, that's all.

What works for you is irrelevant. My daughter is disabled and is choosing a course she loves that is only about 90 minutes from home. It’s laughable to suggest she will call us to micro manage problems. She can still make her own way in the world, but we’re close enough for her if she needs us. She’s only 16 but has organised the open days, has been in contact with disability services and the accommodation team, has arranged the deferral until she is finished 6th year, she is managing the entire process by herself. She picked her motability car, arranged her driving lessons and all whilst studying for her highers. She is hugely capable and will continue to be that way at university. Not everyone has managed everything for their kids at school and doesn’t need them to move to the other end of the country to get some independence.

I think @BoredZelda has hit the nail on the head - perhaps, if you’ve done everything for your kids through school, they might need to go a long way away in order to become independent! That certainly wasn’t true for my kids. They were already pretty independent anyway - they’d been using public transport to traverse a major city since 11/12, they’d travelled to different parts of the world alone or with friends, they were both used to cooking for themselves, making and attending medical appointments etc etc. They could have gone 6 hours away, but why, all other things being equal? Why make their lives (and ours) that bit more expensive and inconvenient for no reason?

I can’t see from what the OP has written, any compelling reason to choose a uni six hours away instead of one or two. I also note that OP’s children have £130pw - lucky them! We give ours £60. It’s easier for kids to go to unis further away if they have more money.

And as I said earlier, it’s horses for courses anyway, who do you think everyone should be pushed through the same experiences, at the same ages? Surely from the first few months of having a child, you realise they’re all different? Dd didn’t walk til 16 months - it would have been totally counter-intuitive to try to force her to do it earlier!

My children are early secondary age so way off thinking about this, but distance is one of many factors I would encourage them to consider when the time comes. All else being similar, I’d prefer them to be 2 hours’ drive away than 6. Travel would be cheaper for a start (I don’t think there are many coach routes where we are) and it would be much easier for them to see us and their old friends.

Their old friends might also be at university! Mine travelled from one uni city to see friends in others. Rarely came home. Hugely independent as she had boarded at school. I never anticipated mercy dashes to either dc. Didn’t happen either. They could choose what suited them and they did.

Oh goodness. Competitive parenting is alive and well I see. How silly. 🙂

Only national express to her Uni city is 2.25am from a city 45 mins drive away. I’ve been looking as trains are disrupted due to engineering work when she needs to go back in January.
It’s unusual for a parent not to take at start of year in September and pick up in June due to all their stuff. For us that means an overnight hotel and sometimes a day off work.
Mine hasn’t been home all semester and will use public transport to come home at Christmas but I’ll still need to pick her up from station as she’s a teen girl with a disability and a suitcase.
I can understand wariness as it’s another cost to factor in when parents are already paying huge sums for accommodation.
£130 a week is an extremely generous allowance.
If a student is surviving on £50 a week then being able to get home cheaply to get washing and drying done, Sunday lunch and stock up on a few bits of shopping from home can make life much easier.

Mine can choose wherever they want to go. But we have spoken about there being practical implications of those choices, so they go into it with an open mind. I explained that if they are more than 3 hours away, realistically, what they take with them at the start has to fit into the small car (I don't drive my husband's car). A more local university means we can do 2 journeys / take 2 cars. Being further away means it costs more to visit home. Equally, while being more local gives you the option to come home, it's not a requirement. I dont expect to see him any more frequently whether he lives 1 hour away or 5. For us, the distance is a factor in his choices, but it's not the deciding factor.

By contrast to @OhDear111 dd, my ds' sixth form best friends are all still local (well, one was until last week when he moved to Australia!). He didn't base his decision to go an hour away on that, but it's quite nice that he can come home fairly easily and see them all at the same time! He's only done it once so far this term - for reading week - and the visit had a double purpose, as it also allowed him to do some shifts at work. My dd's friends all went away to uni so it was different for her (and we moved areas anyway when she went to uni) and she visited them in their uni cities. Again, everyone is different, there's no need to make hard and fast rules...

No. But dc who go to a grammar or selective independents won’t find many friends at home.They have nearly all gone in term time.

This. WIWIKAU is wild.

I definitely think worth having the conversations about practicality with yp. It’s not always distance, it’s ease of travel.
Being nearer home can also help if yp needs to work to fund uni. My dc has a flatmate that works 2 weekend nights in his hometown just over an hour away by train. By being so near he can retain his job he had before uni.
Family circumstances too. If parents have elderly relatives to care for etc it’s not always feasible to drive long distances and stay overnight to drop yp off.
Some will be financially motivated. We are up north in a relatively affluent area and lots of dc at school were told northern unis only by parents as the accommodation is such a huge amount to fund by parents with dc on min loan.

I don't think it's sanctimonious to say that!

One of my choices was Exeter which is literally the other side of the country to where I grew up . My mum said no as it was an 6/7 hour drive. And I always resented that . I think an opportunity like uni that's being paid for by the young person must be their choice and parental preference not accounted for really.

I

I think an opportunity like uni that's being paid for by the young person must be their choice

I actually am in general in favour of YP choosing the uni they want to go to – and while I do think it’s worth considering location (both my uni DC were close to home and it turned out to be a good thing for various reasons), that might mean a location far away.

But good luck if you plan for your YP to pay for uni all by themselves. Unless your HH income is less than £25k you will be expected to contribute as a parent. I don't happen to think that means you should to say “2 hours and no further” though.

@ThatPeachLion many yp at university are receiving thousands a year from parents. Min loan in England is £4900, rent often £8000 or £9000 alone. Lots of parents effectively veto some options as finances won’t stretch. I know plenty of parents who put limits on eg no London.

My ds is at university in our home city, it is the top one for his chosen subject. He is married & hasn't had to leave his home, but is able to have the full experience joining societies & making friends. He is 3rd oldest on his course at nearly 22 & says he is past the stage of wanting to go out drinking every night. He never considered any universities outside our area, several of his friends from school chose to attend one of the local universities as it worked out cheaper than having to fork out for accommodation.

My DD chose a uni 45 mins away. She likes to come home every couple of weeks because she has a very large friendship group here. All her friendship group (12) chose universities that were under 2 hours to get home so they could flit back and forth. It’s nothing to do with parents being clingy. The girls she now lives with one chose to be 4 hours away from her hometown but she seemed to want a fresh start and only 1 close friend in her hometown.

Agreed. Parents top up maintenance loans (and some don’t nearly enough - I find it shocking they haven’t prepared for this and plead ignorance) but the students have the burden of debt to shoulder for next 40 years!