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?

My son (away at uni) has a friend who goes to the local uni and stayed home. He told me recently his friend regretted the decision and wished he done the full live on campus/house share experience not at a local uni. His parents pressured him to stay local and live at home, which was strange as they have plenty of money.

I find this really honest and maybe a perspective many parents share that were students back in the say 90s. From a female perspective you are navigating a a challenging social landscape with a lot of misogyny. I remember lovely phrases such a 'f+)k a fresher week' amongst others that really brought back some of the decision. making that 18 year olds make in the heat of this new found liberty with the ability to drink. With maturity I think parents ask themselves 'should I promote putting my children through this'. If there is no developmental disadvantage to staying at home, making friends, studying and progressively becoming more independent is that such a bad thing?

Back in the day going people often stayed at home until marriage so there are different successful life models for different people.

These things really made me nervous sending my. Daughter away.

That poster says should want to move out, which I think is a reasonable thing to think. I would never pressure my kids to move out (unless they were pushing 40 lol) but I would be a bit disappointed if they didn’t want to start tasting independence in their late teens/early 20s. As it happened they both did want to try it at uni and they flourished with it.

My dd has applied to local universities or can commute to. She is already very independent which I love. She isn’t interested in the “university experience” where we live it’s an everyday thing we see.

I noted in the article that Amelka not only lives within public transport commuting distance of one of the best unis to study her subject but also pays her mum no rent.

I get what your saying but that doesn’t have to be done in uni years
many people who haven’t been to uni do this
I live in the north and know plenty of people without uni education who have upped stick and moved to the big cities

I experienced college living away and then living at home. I then moved away with my job for a certain period of time then went home. Then finally left properly at 30. I expect my kids will do similar. It’s fine.

I thought the lower maintenance loan you get for living at home was partly to help pay towards your keep. Not all families can afford to feed young adults without some contribution

For me part of it is definitely selfish. I don’t have to think about food shopping or cooking or laundry or worrying about them still being out at 2am. I can do what I want when I want, eat a takeaway for one if I want, lie in bed really late at the weekend if I want. Stuff I can't really do if I’m in mum mode even with young adults. Young adults living at home is not a house share set up, I would still have to be mum and I simply don’t want to do that full time any more.

My eldest is in his first year of Uni and has gone to a small campus in Cornwall. He opted for a quiet flat and has coped very well with living away from home. He however doesn't like the workload and wishes he had taken a gap year first. He only has 10 more weeks of lectures before he is then finished for the year. He doesnt even have any exams in the summer term! So will basically be paying tuition fees and accommodation that he won't be using!

Dd is applying for next year and she wants to go to a nearby city (about 30 min on train) and she wants to live in halls for the experience. We live in a very small boring town and last train back is 11pm so not good for a night out! She is very social though, likes to go to music gigs etc. I think she will really enjoy living in halls but if she wants a quiet weekend or even a day visit she can pop home very easily.

I think that's really valid @BunnyLake , I definitely feel some of that.

I also think that reference to failure to launch is absolute rubbish. Post uni I bought a flat in London for £54k. The same flat costs £650k today. The state of the housing market and economy/lack of jobs for graduates is a huge factor in young people not leaving home.

@Anytimeilookaround

you wouldn’t be able to stop them I’m afraid as they would be adults and can make those choices for themselves.

@BunnyLake

Totally get what you’re saying. Also I think you should be able to do all that with adult children around, if they expect you to be in mum mode that’s their issue!

I agree that it is far harder now to leave home than it was thirty odd year’s ago but the desire to want to be independent is still important in my opinion. I would be concerned if my kids just didn’t want to be independent and wanted to stay at home into their late 20s/30s. Costs dictate the practicalities of course, but the desire for independence should be there. High housing costs has been an absolute blight on our kids and I feel so bad for them.

Easier said than done, which is why I said living with adult kids isn’t like living in a house share. You can’t live with your older kids like you are unrelated house mates and no longer ‘mum’.

I’ve been trying to think how all / most students living at home would work in my region & this is a good point. I think students living at home is a foreseeable consequence of uni becoming so expensive - but what I do think is unfair is that there has been no planning for it.

Thinking about my region, it does show why there has been a lack of planning, as it wouldn’t be at all easy to do. Firstly, if it’s going to become standard for DC to study from home, then unis would have to be ranked so there are equivalent opportunities across the country. If this happened, there’s an obvious choice in my region for which uni would be the Oxbridge equivalent (the most prestigious one), but that uni would have improve its offer to meet what Oxbridge does (most obviously by offering a similar small group tutorial system). That would be expensive.

Then, the other unis would have to be ranked - we probably have a range throughout the region to cater for all ability levels, but would unis be happy to formerly assigned as the lower grade ones? The obvious choice for those would be the ex-poly unis but they might not be happy with that, given they have tried hard to raise their status during the last 3 decades.

Then, there’s transport - the girl in the article has a good public transport link, whereas in my region public transport is very patchy. The only way it would work for all students to have access to all unis (so they could choose the most appropriate one) would be to massively improve local rail services (all unis are close to stations) so students would just have to manage the journey to their nearest station & the rest would be a fairly easy journey - it’s tempting for people just say that students should drive to solve that problem, but some roads get very congested at peak times so you would also have a long journey by car (at least on a bus / train you can do some course reading).

I did like that there was a proper space at the uni for students studying from home. That sounds like a sensible to enhance the student experience. I can also understand why studying away from home has lost its appeal (even though it’s a shame - I had a great time at uni) - it’s not just the considerable expense but there’s also the poor student experience during Covid. It’s inevitable that both of these factors are going lead to changes.

Also re living at home as a uni student, the uni would have to offer the degree they want to do. Not all universities offer all degrees.

Having spontaneous house parties, living rooms full of strangers and bringing different girls home is generally accepted by student house mates but definitely not mums 😁

@BunnyLake

yep! I’m 100% with you, I think young people should want independence even if that means they have to leave the home comforts of their parents home.

Re the comments on failure to launch, it’s also worth bearing in mind that both physical illness and mental health problems amongst children have really increased post Covid, but the support for those children hasn’t.

In my local authority, child mental health services have very long waiting lists, so DC wait years for appointments (even though it’s well known how important early intervention is). Sure Start has been vastly reduced as has other support services for parents re SEN. If a child does fall behind in education due to physical / mental health, then it’s really hard to get back into education. Resit classes etc. are all geared towards students who are either struggling academically or have had behaviour issues so the range is narrow and is geared towards further ed. - it’s not an ideal offer for students who are academic but who have been ill. Ironically, this is where having a stronger connection between unis & local communities could really help, because that could help to expand the offer.

I know @BunnyLake . For me them living at home means that the cash I don't need to use to fund their uni accommodation goes into a savings pot which I hope to be able to give them for a house deposit. One is doing a study year abroad so I expect that won't be cheap but I expect it can't be that much more expensive than here.

Both my DC are quite fortunate that our local unis rank really highly for each of their chosen subjects.

One thing about other countries and it being more normal to stay at home - there is a lot less snobbery about different universities where I am now. So by staying home you're not sacrificing prestige.

I left a professional job to go to uni to improve my qualifications. But I deliverately chose one that was in another city - although there was a perfectly good RG uni in my home city. I already had my own place but it was part of the process of putting distance between myself and my family. I was lucky enough to get a council flat (albeit on a tough and undesirable estate) and only 15 minutes walk from Uni. I now look back on my uni experience with great satisfaction. Not for the social side but for the intellectual pleasure it gave me to study and research and switch careers.

My dd has stayed at home whilst going to uni. She's in her first year. All of her friends have done the same with the exception of one, who has stayed local but moved into halls. Although this friend was living in an abusive situation, so halls are an escape.

We're lucky that we live in a city with 3 great universities that are all only a short bus ride away. DD was considering going somewhere further out but in the end she said it makes sense to stay at home, where she already has a job, doesn't pay any rent or bills and can come and go as she pleases.