Are we entering an era of students mainly picking a local uni and commuting?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/sep/13/rise-of-student-commuters-costs-living-at-home-or-in-halls

With the expense of student loans and general cost of living pressures coupled with exponentially increasing IT impact are we now going into be in a position of students maybe by default choosing a local university.

My concern would be maybe more academic kids from poorer backgrounds maybe going for a local option rather than going for maybe a better HEI which is more distant. Obviously Oxbridge may offer cheap accommodation but the students going there are from predominantly middle class backgrounds with parents I would hazard a guess maybe would be able to support their children anyway.. I think the problem will be with other Russell group institutions including London unis, Durham, Bristol, Edinburgh etx. where there may be some distance to travel.

Is this commuting student model really a good thing?

DS went to a local University on a degree apprenticeship, we were all just exceptionally lucky it happened that way. We live where there are multiple Universities within ok commuting distance. So all the money out aside for University was not used at all including what his Grandad left him.

I disagree completely. Moving away to uni allowed me to escape a bigoted abusive f, mind numbing small town limitations, to experience how life could be, and to build the kind of independence, freedom and career my dm couldn't even imagine existed.

There's nothing to stop graduates returning to their home towns if they want to, but denying them that chance to experience a different way of life would be damaging to the development of our young people and their ambitions and futures.

I certainly think if you are luckily enough to live in an area with lots of choice of unis at all acceptance levels plusFE colleges and apprenticeship options parentswith teens and pre teens should maybe think twice about moving to areas with few local options just for a bigger house etc, and that includes those moving away from Greater London which in fairness does give a ton of options - fair enough if your teen wants to go away anyway but plenty may take the ‘local’ options too in the right areas

Indeed - the implication is it is grants- but it isn’t - it’s just bigger loans

Sending your child away for a year in halls is the new middle class privilege experience.

We live within an hour's drive of 9 different unis, but some of these would be horrible commutes and worse by train (eg three changes). Of these 9 only two are realistic daily commutes, neither did the course my DS wanted (none of the other 7 did either) and for my DD only one of them did, but it is lowly ranked for that subject (pure humanities) as it is mainly a vocational ex-technical college, it is excellent for those subjects. So it was not going to happen and we are hardly in the back end of nowhere..

Is it mc to max out on loans and become 80k in debt, and rising?

What about the chidldren who are not ever going to go to uni. Are they all still there? Did you ever go back?

I live in a small town I desperately hope it becomes a better place and I do my best locally to help this. I hope my two children stay local and train locally and put bcak into the comunity that made them warts and all. I have seen the world and many differnt places thay have too. I dont think you need to go away to uni to do that, but I also know people that did and some of whom do look down their noses at the ones who didn’t or could'nt!

The universities closest to our home that are fairly decent are campus Universities . A public transport commute would take appx. 90 minutes as it would entail a train and then a bus. commuting costs might not be much less than a room in a flat. Our nearest university has a high percentage of mature students, as it has always been a more popular option for those who are local and heading back into education after a break.

I think we need local hubs for local students to study at so they are affiliated to a bigger name University. Maybe the students could do live-in summer schools so they get a chance to experience living independently and it can widen their horizons to experience being somewhere new, with different people, if only for a few weeks a year.

I think they were trying to move away from 'Preston Poly', 'Preston University' too similar. Central Lancashire sounds nicer than Preston I suppose. Tho as you say it couldn't be more in Preston and def isn't Central Lancashire.

Part of my dissertation many years ago was about single parents having to choose Universities close to home and how changes to timetables repeatedly through the year really affected child caring responsibilities and ability to participate in further education.

Yes I do think more teens will be cutting out the living expenses and staying at home and paying minimal rent if the closest University does a course in their chosen subject. I also think people will be leaving University until they have begun a career, secured a job and are either part-funded by that company or know exactly what niche area they want to progress to. So by that token, usually would have found an area to live in first meaning the University chosen would depend on where they worked and had settled for their job. I suspect it will change HE in various ways; having holidays that coincide with schools, less late classes, creches at Universities or pre-schools and far more courses for apprenticeships to cater for the ageing students being funded by companies.

Individual choice I would say (finances allowing)
DD picked the best regarded Uni for her course that also has great links to Industry but she will have a HUGE dent when she leaves
DS is probably opting for our local Uni but it is very well regarded for the course he wants to do. he will only have to take the Fees loans if he wants to live at home
In many Eu countries its the norm to go to your closest University

As per my post above - if anyone read the BBC news article about Paramedics today, you would see that the ones who got apprenticeships have employment while those who chose University are jobless. Due to the decreasing number of working positions with AI taking entry level jobs, I do think more people will focus on paid employment first as AI will not pass on a CV to a human to interview if there has been no job previously or has been a gap.

Public transport would need to be A LOT better outside of the major cities. Our "local" university is only 20 minutes away by car, but 1.5 hours by bus involving 2 changes! I personally think 90 minutes each way is too long, even worse that there's no evening bus service on our route at our side of the city. The bus between the Uni itself and the city centre is brilliant, literally every 5 minutes, starts early, finishes late, but it's the routes out of the city at the opposite end that are diabolical, i.e. every 2 hours on Sunday, no evening services after 7pm etc - so not really suitable for commuting to the Uni unless you're living in the city centre or that side of the city. They just assume all the students live in the city centre student accommodation and have planned the bus service accordingly. Can't take a car because students are prohibited from any kind of parking permit unless disabled or a carer, so they'd have to pay public parking fees on campus which are ruinously expensive for anything longer than short stay.

If you're using public transport, it's actually easier for most people in Fife to get to Edinburgh than to St Andrews.

I recall that when we went there for a visit from our school, we had to take the train and then a bus, whereas there were direct trains and buses to Edinburgh.

Central Lancashire makes more sense if you remember Preston was part of the late1960s Central Lancashire New Town project that resulted in much of the open space between Preston, Chorley and Leyland being covered in houses.

Lancashire was much bigger then. It included Manchester, had a boundary with Cheshire at the Mersey in the south and included the southern parts of what is now Cumbria in the north.

It’s a massive change because going to university is far more than study and attending lectures. It’s the whole experience of living with peers, managing bills, social clubs, friends and relationships. That can’t be ignored but neither can cost 🤷‍♀️

It used to be, but it used to be about social drinking (this generation don't do that as much) and letting your hair down by getting things out of your system. Now the debt you have for life means kids lumbered with it don't want to waste the time at Uni (some obviously will) and are doing all they can to make it worthwhile. Because they come out with debt the "saving" side of buying cheap meals and apportioning rent isn't really being learned as it is just added to the huge debt they have. Rent is now the same as people pay for a mortgage in most cities.

well someone upthread suggested that getting £80+ in debt (aka “full maintenance) is a blessing for a “poorer children”

how middle-class children are different?

DH is from Glasgow and everyone he knew stayed at home for uni, and now the people who have remained their children are doing the same. It does seem a very particular thing in Glasgow to do that though.

DD won’t go to our local uni (I don’t blame her) it’s an ex poly and it has some excellent courses in certain subjects, but not all. We have other unis within an hour if the traffic was clear, unfortunately it won’t be in the morning.

In this regard it could also have unintended consequences on Private Schools - making parents choose whether they pay for a Private education or University. The richest will be able to do both but with us living longer, female children especially will need more pension pot and less debt.

UK’s private school sector is only 7%, they are welcome to send their children to state schools

My point was about presenting poorer children access to full maintenance uni loans as a blessing, whilst fuming about “middle class children having to go into 80K debt”

This is an issue.

Many unis do limited courses and have a particular 'band' for applications. So if you want to do something vocational like nursing or teaching, that may not be available, and if you are close to a competitive RG uni but are likely to get B/Cs at A Level, you need to look further afield.

It is definitely a huge limiting factor. Even for people who are reasonably well off, your child being saddled with debt forever is a big consideration.

it's not a blessing for anyone

My child isn't at the stage of looking at Universities yet but will be soon.

We have a good university within commuting distance from us and potentially London is also a realistic commute.

I'll leave the decision to my child but personally I feel the local good university could be a good option for them. It's not Russell Group but UK top 25. How important is Russell Group? It's an unknown area for me.

There are grandparent funds to help cover some costs but to my mind a good degree with less student debt and grandparents funds still being available as a good future deposit for their first home makes a lot of sense to me.