Students living at home - maybe an expected but saddening trend

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g09p93m29o

Anecdotally this is really becoming a thing and due to costs students are eschewing the whole student experience of living away from home. As well as cost savings I think there is a perhaps savvy realisation that being thrown into a house or hall with strangers is maybe a step too far from an exploratory point of view. No one wants to be quiet one in a party flat or corridor for instance. In addition I think parents of girls fully realise some of the dangers of being away from home for an extended period perhaps for the first time combined with plenty of access to drugs and alcohol is not perhaps the safest.

However could the prospect of university just being an extension of school from a living point of view limit social mobility with students preferring a home town university to one some distance away with a better reputation?.Does work need to be done (and ideally in some fantasy world funded)_to ensure working class kids are not being put off well regarded unis because of distance?

Is it a bad thing
uni about education not piss head partying

This is very much not the impression I am getting. My DSs 'partied' aplenty! Many of the students I teach still pick unis on a combination of factors but social life and fun often feature. I am nowhere near a good university so the vast majority move away. The growing trend is not going to uni at all. Those who go are those who want to move away , and/or want to study. You can party and study. I did. My DCs did.

Posts on MN show that people are still concerned about socialising opportunities - see the recent thread on Warwick , for example.

I can confirm they do still party very hard. I think they drink more not less because they knock back spirits at pres. it’s expensive to drink in pubs and bars but they just drink at home before going out.

My two lived away, one now in his last year. They were lucky enough to have good flatmates, make good friends and it has been a massively positive experience, albeit expensive. My nephew went away, lasted six weeks and now commutes. His self esteem took a real battering and as he has failed to really make any friends I think he’s quite lonely. It can definitely go either way.

Mine went to a local Uni, could have easily commuted but stayed in Halls, then a shared house... matured her!

But students staying at home is a direct result of the very cost of going to Uni, the most expensive, by far, of any European country.

the biggest danger though is students who should be going to Uni, don't and end up in unsatisfying jobs.

What do Govts think would happen?

My eldest won't be moving away. He has a part time job he enjoys, and wants to keep earning a few quid every week, he doesn't drink and he has a couple of food allergies. It's not worth thousands more in debt.

I am ND and never once went clubbing but I still got loads out of living independently - I think it's sad that drinking and partying are seen as the reason to live independently as a student.

We were on the fence with our DS, we wanted him to go to Uni and live life fuller than he did, quite a loner, not bothering with the friends he had, he wasn’t into partying and drinking. We visited the accommodation in halls, but he said he would rather commute daily to a nearby university. He only went in 3 days, one of those was only for a couple of hours, he would have been bored if he lived in. My friends DD stayed in halls, she came home late Thursday to early Monday every week, it was madness paying her accommodation just for her to stay 3 nights a week. Mind you, DS is 33 now, still at home, most of his friends that went away to Uni are now married with families.

I wouldn’t let my children go to a Uni that they couldn’t attend from home. I don’t trust halls to keep them safe.

My son was doing that at 16 going to college.

But they aren't children. They should be adults.

It’s the norm in many countries, the going away thing is not the default choice in most countries and cost is taken into consideration. Plenty of students elsewhere do go away but they won’t necessarily be in the majority. Circumstances vary and for my dd being at home made sense, was just the 2 of us at home, big house and I ended up being the music dept hang out with students everywhere (we lived close to the university, 20 minutes walk) my food bill was astronomical until covid curbed everything

Though parents obviously values their children's independence I do appreciate the anxiety (as a parent) that is faced with young people becoming fully independent. Yes I remember parties but there was also a darker aspect of women being in unsafe postions, sexual assault (often combined with alcohol), mental health not being adequately addressed etc. I don't have an absolutely fixed position on this but I can understand parents legitimate angst.

This is very common here in yep of Ireland. Always has been. Even those that live away go home pretty much every weekend.
We have a grant based system here still.
Most students work throughout uni also.

But ita not all.about going to parties its about living and dealing with living with different people other than your family. In a different place. For people like DH who's family had always lived in a small poor seaside town it was about living in a totally different environment, getting ro really know a new city and all the opportunities that can bring. The difference culturally and ambition wisw between him and his brothers is world's apart. Not wrong just different.
I guess if you already live in London or Manchester its not such a big thing.

They should be but many haven’t developed the independence that we had at the same age 30 years ago. It’s shocking how much support they expect. It’s partly due to helicopter parenting too. I know someone who travels almost two hours each way to clean and cook for her DS for the week every Sunday!

Well they aren't children at that point. Are you going to keep them locked in the house?

Do young people need to broaden their horizons as much with the internet basically making us one global community for good or for ill? Maybe online/virtual communities are becoming steadily more important to young people?

To expand on my earlier comment -

University is such a great time to try things out - there is a society for everything, you can do army cadets, swing dancing, scuba diving, martial arts, Warhammer, anything you want really. No, you don't have to live in to do these things but it does help. Drinking and clubbing isn't the only thing in student life.

I think for ND people and I speak from personal experience here, it can be a wonderful way to test out living away from home in an environment that is more supportive than the adult real world. It took a lot of effort and work for me to learn how to organise myself and I honestly don't think I would have got there with my parents to pick up the pieces. It took sometimes failing and feeling the consequences to get there l.

But I think often parents of ND children these days just aren't really focussed on building independence, they seem almost keen to keep their children dependent and at home as adults.

This is so perceptive.
I also notice that friends of my dc’s who have gone away to uni seem to be home most weekends...
My dd would have rather stuck pins in her eyes than go away to uni, choosing to study for her degree and masters whilst living at home and working part-time . Still in huge student finance debt . We are ( very lol ) working class but relatives who are middle class seemed to be aghast that she wouldn’t be getting the full uni experience by not leaving home - she is quiet and home loving - now excelling in her chosen career - - everyone is different ❤️

I agree with children in modern society not being as independent so maybe the shock of university life and independence has become greater. Yes, students are adults, but in a lot of respects late teenagers so it is debatable what the right way of transitioning to fill independence is.

also I don't think a student living at home is not the same as locking your children away it's just maybe a more measured and cost effective transition to adult hood.

My dd went to uni 4 hours drive away - my ds is at the local uni and is staying home.

the only difference other than that the massive amount of money he’s saving is she learnt to be more independent but he’ll get that when he eventually moves out anyway - and he has always been more self sufficient than her anyway

I'm taking DD back to uni today. She is ready to go, and (oddly) we are ready for her to go back.

It is such a change in character and independence since Sept. I don't want her to end up with a "small" hometown life.

We looked very closely at going to our local uni v going to one where accommodation would be needed.

One thing that stood out was my son needed the tuition fee loans either way. The way the loans are structured meant that taking out maintenance loans too didnt as make much difference to repayments as expected. Im probably not explaining it well, but we found on a lower salary he'd be paying it if for 40 years either way and on a higher salary he'd pay if off quicker either way. He would pay more if he was paying it off, but it wasnt as deal breaking as you'd thing when mapped on a spreadsheet.

I think the main advantage would be if parents had saved up for accommodation and it meant that the person didnt even need tuition fee loans or only one years worth loan.

There were other good things about home such as keeping his part time job.

I think if the courses had been equal he would have picked home for the feeling of having a smaller debt, but not all courses are equal.

Most Australian students now stay at home because they can't afford to move to study. It's £15,000+ a year for tuition & board alone. It's not a choice.

I live near a regional uni (and used to work there). When I first started, most local students ran away to the capital or interstate. Now most go local because of cost & £10,000 scholarships just to make it first choice. They don't want to, but have no choice. The uni is fine, but there's no campus life & city is rather dull.

One family member has a child who is determined to escape because their (priviledged) family life is very restrictive & they want the freedom to explore life, which is exactly how it should be. Parents are wealthy so will pay, but otherwise the DC would be stuck here like everyone else.