Students living at home

My experience was much like M0nica’s. Seminars and tutorials were important, not lectures.

One of my sons lived in college for three years, which meant that, although he was away from home, he still had no need to learn to look after himself. My other boy lived in self-catering university accommodation for one year, and then in a series of rather unsalubrious student houses.

My mother was at university in the 1920s. (It was a long time before I realised this was unusual.) She moved from a small Lancashire town to a big city (Liverpool) and found it liberating. She used to say how wonderful it was to come to a place where the main aim in life was not to get engaged by the time you were 22 or so. (Though she did meet my father there!)

4allweknow

A lot of students nowadays don't go to lectures every day so can be relatively easy to live at home

That hasn't changed. It was the same in the 1960s when I was at university. I was doing a humanities degree and might have only a couple of lectures on a given day. One year on Thursdays, I had one lecture only - at 6.30 in the evening..

It was often different for science and engineering based subjects. The theory was that Humanities subjects were more informed opinion and knowledge that was got from spending the rest of our days in the library reading extensively round our subject and writing essays or preparing for tutorials and seminars.

I spent my first year at art school living at home in London. Even then accommodation was expensive and hard to find. I missed a lot of the fun and if I was late home after an evening life drawing class my DM would be worried and angry.

The next year I chose to go away and at last had the wonderful/awful experience of trying to manage on my grant and have fun. I can remember ordering a quarter pound of mince and the butcher cheerily saying "'avin a party?"

My DC all 4 left home even the one who went to university in Edinburgh - our nearest. 2 DGC are at uni now. Both have left home and so far are happy.

DGS even cooked for all his new flatmates at the end of Fresher's week. I don't think they worry about money like we did.

A lot of students nowadays don't go to lectures every day so can be relatively easy to live at home

I think it depends on how far from the university you live and the personality of the student - and the extent to which parents are prepared to stand to one side and not interfere in their lives and still treat them as if they children.

DS went away from home for his first degree but lived at home throughout his post-graduate studies. We lived a couple of hundred yards from the university and treated him like a lodger. He went in and out at will, we did not wait for him to come in, do his laundry, or provide meals unless he said he said in advance that would join us. It worked very well.

I can remember 2 girls on my course in the 60s who lived at home, One living with her grandparents, I think that possibility was why she chose the university. The other had a long commute. Both of them effectively got a degree without actually ever being in he university except for lectures. The girl living with her grandparents spent all her free time with them.

I think the parent/child relationship needs to be negotiated so that the child can benefit from everything going to university can offer and can become independent, Some parents find that very difficult.

Maremia

It also depends on where and what they are studying.
If the best course is provided near their home, then why chose one further away, just for the 'experience'?

Because that experience taught my son all sorts of skills from budgeting, living peaceably in a community, getting all the utilities sorted, cooking for himself, negotiating disputes, looking after others on a night out and all sorts of other skills needed for life. Many of those things were already done in our house and he had no experience of sorting out all the things that adults do when running a house. It was sink or swim with advice when things went wrong like the upstairs flooding his accommodation when their boiler burst or getting their own boiler fixed when it failed. He learned about renting, signing leases, chasing estate agents, writing letters of complaint, using cashpack sites, ordering his weekly shop online, you name it, he learned. Had he waited until he was out at work, things would have been so much harder because time would have been at a premium. It was also amazing how much he took on as his peers were too worried. He became known as the flat Daddy. On top of that, he had friends around much of the time, he played sports, socialised (a lot!) and was able to use all the Uni equipment day and night without worrying about how he would travel home. It wasn't just an 'experience' it was learning how to be independent.

Doing away with grants for able students was one of the worst decisions ever made in this country's education system. The old meritocracy was a million times better than our current poor excuse for a "democracy", but that's what happens when we put profit before people.

My chum lives on the IOW, her son who is on the Autistic scale, he didn't feel confident to live out. So he would commute to the mainland to uni then go home every night.
If he need to stay overnight, they would book him a cheap Hotel in the area. Worked out perfectly for everyone.

learning to socialize,work etc

Oh dear, all those parties it's what they go to uni for

It also depends on where and what they are studying.
If the best course is provided near their home, then why chose one further away, just for the 'experience'?

My youngest son grew up so much when he went away to Uni. Every time he came home, the difference was very noticeable. Covid made his experience very different and he also had an intern year. He's an older child within the academic year and I think that gave him a resilience that another one of ours didn't have. He also had a ball having joined a sports team where they partied well! Whilst he doesn't like having the debt, he would want to do the same again.

My eldest daughter lived at home but didn't go the distance and part of that I believe was because without living in halls, it was difficult to be part of the nice bits like socialising. She hated every aspect of Uni but there again, she hated living with us too!

Our eldest son went and stayed in digs rather than on campus for the first year. It was much more expensive so the following year his girlfriend moved up with him. Cue the end of his uni days as she couldn't live with other people and he had to work long hours to pay for accommodation where she could live without other people Many years later he did his professional exams which was equivalent to a degree and I suspect that he wasn't mature enough for Uni being a late August baby.

The middle son did his degree part time whilst working. It was a tough path but he has never felt he missed anything by not going to Uni or having a huge debt at the end of it.

I think it all depends on the personality of the child as to how things work out.

It can be a ver difficult situation. Our DS got stuck and needed to take a year out of his PhD in AI. He spent the year at home and worked locally.
His girlfriend now wife came too. She seemed very possessive and made it clear that she resented the fact that he had a life back home too. Also, they had both become vegan so needed to cook separately from us.
After a few weeks, they moved into a rented house near his work. We were sorry it hadn't worked out. I think DS was too.

Oh I forgot to say my grandaughter worked a number of jobs all through Uni which also gave her not only a good CV but added to her growing

I had to be pushed to leave home for university, but I’m so glad I did. Those student years in London were the best of my life, once I’d got over initial homesickness.

When it came to my own children, I insisted they went to universities away from home. One of them was keen to leave, one took a little more persuading, but they both enjoyed it in the end.

My grandchildren aren’t quite old enough yet. We’ll see!

We couldn’t afford to pay for either of our children’s university accommodation, both lived in expensive areas, Oxford and Brighton.

Grants had gone by this time. Eldest, had fees of only £1,500 a year, DD were £9,000 a year. Both had annual maintenance loans.

There’s 12.5 year ga between these two.

Son worked to supplement his income, DD lived with (then) partner and they shared expenses. Partner got a huge maintenance loan and a grant as her mother was single and unemployed. Partner also worked part time.

Our other three children chose not to go to University.

The assumption that ‘ we all’ enjoyed the freedoms of university is incorrect because few went to university. In the mid 80 s when I graduated 23 years after leaving school, the percentage was 5.

Most people like me left school at 15 to start work, or some ‘stayed on’ until 16 taking two or three GCEs. However its noticeable from their posts that a number on GN went to grammar schools and onto universities. They were the lucky few.

I had two children at primary school so no clubbing or high jinx for me. I was there to get my degree, appreciating the opportunity and not to party.

Your gd appears to have just started at university, once she gets to know more people I am sure she may stay over at fellow students accommodation, so she won’t miss too much of the social life.

One of our DS attended a university which was amongst the top in the country for the subject he studied. It was 10 miles from home, so for his first year he went into halls of residence in order to get the full student experience.
The only difference was that the students came into our city for night life on a Saturday, so DS spent that night at home taking advantage of Sunday dinner before returning to Uni.
For his subsequent years ( 4 year course) he lived at home, preferring it to student houses! I wonder why?

My BF’s DGD, just 18 has opted to live at home for her first year, when she starts Uni in Newcastle next month and will commute from the coast near Sunderland. Also a shy girl, her parents are respecting her choice, but hope she’ll be confident enough next year to move out and house share. Cost isn’t an issue.

It is a shame I know it costs an arm and a leg but one of my grandaughters went away the shyist, least confident girl you have ever cone across and has ended up at the finish of her masters a totally competent , confident and a fully strong young lady who secured a very grown, up fantastic job in a completely different area. She has faced so many new challenges with great maturity that I m sure she wouldn’t have had the confidence to do if she hadn’t gone away to Uni, and you justvcan’t put a price on that