Living at home causes you to miss out on &amp;quot;full uni experience&amp;quot;

Experts from the Sutton Trust have suggested that those who live at home while studying can miss out on the "full uni experience" and that disadvantaged students from the UK are more than three time likely to live at home.

You can read more on the story here.

What do you make of this? Do you think that living at home can cause you to miss out on the "full uni experience?" What can be done to support disadvantaged students move out? Did you live at home while studying?

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Reply 1

Flying Turtle

Myself I am not disadvantaged. Currently I live at home while studying.. I travel about an hour to the uni and have no problem with it. As the women on the news page said you have more financial support at home while than in uni. I do too have a few friends who live at the uni and I must say some are coping well and some are just struggling. Yes.. it is a whole new experience but it's up to you. I don't care what people say about not having the "full uni experience". Right now I am able to study and live at how seeing my family everyday and that's about it.

Reply 2

Mesopotamian…

I live at home and actually more often than not I'm relieved with my choice to stay at home when I see some of the struggles people on my course go through. Most of the 'struggles' are quite minor buts it's these small things that make you appreciate your home and family a bit more :smile:

Reply 3

DrawTheLine

I prefer living at uni because I'm more independent and have more freedom, however I absolutely hate how inconsiderate and rude people can be in halls.

Of course it is fine to leave your dishes piled up in the sink that 3 other people use, it is your sink after all!

No, that's fine, please play your loud thumping music at 5am on a Thursday morning, not like anyone has to be up early to attend lectures!

And yes, we really want you to slam the doors at 3am on a Monday morning because that's the time we all love to be awake with you.

Reply 4

1secondsofvamps

Kinda agree with this.
Im a first year uni student and live at home. I wanted to move away but ended up staying home just to make my parents happy.

I know some people will say "you're saving money by being at home" or "you dont have to worry about cooking, rent etc" but that's not the point.

The main reason for me wanting to move away is to gain the skills and independence, even if it means going through typical uni student "struggles".

By living at home im not really given the opportunity to learn to budget, do weekly grocery shop, cook etc.

In terms of social life, i am struggling to make friends. There's not many societies at my uni/not interested in any of them. I also dont stay out late, go to events or clubbing because i know it would be annoying to my parents if i kept coming home late.

Reply 5

Petulia

I stayed at home to be with family but I still had a lot of friends in first year. I transferred to a different uni in second year (still living at home but this one is actually much closer to me) and it was kind of difficult to integrate into university life at this point, and living at home does make it harder. I would be interested in joining societies and going to events etc but in second year your timetable is much emptier and by third year you're barely even in uni more than once a week. I think it's pointless to go all the way into uni on my days off just so I can attend a 2 hour event in hopes of socialising.

The timetable definitely makes me feel like I'm just a part time student, because I have lectures on Monday and then I'm free for the rest of the week, so I schedule all of my home responsibilities etc around that and then I'm pretty much always busy at home on those 4 weekdays off. For students who live on campus, I guess their whole life revolves around university because they're in a new city and they don't have any family around, so they occupy themselves with university friends and events. If I had moved out I honestly have no idea what I would be doing on all of my days off. Seems like it could be quite lonely after first year, especially if you're not that sociable in the first place.

Reply 6

shadowdweller

Volunteer Section Leader

I don't agree with this at all - a different experience, yes, but you don't miss out on anything just because of the experience. At the end of the day it all boils down to the individual, and what they make of it; granted, some students who live at home will miss out on the full uni experience, but so will many who actually live at uni! If you live at home but make friends who live in uni early on, there's no inherent reason you'd miss out on the social side really.

Reply 7

queen-bee

Not true in my experience. Lived at home during my time at university and still made the most of it

Reply 8

Notoriety

I would posit the reason disadvantaged students live at home is because they have crappy grades. Those with crappy grades will be equally served by the ex-poly in their town or the next town over as they will be with an ex-poly 200 miles away. It is where you have the grades which allow you to get into the more elite universities that it makes sense to move away.

I don't think the direct reason disadvantaged students stay at home is because they cannot afford to move away (though it may be based on a misconception that they cannot afford it). After all, generous scholarships at those more elite universities along with SFE maintenance loan make moving away more than financially manageable. However, applicants might not appreciate the level of support on offer to them and hence a misconception is unhelpfully formed. If they also attend a crappy school which near-exclusively send its students to the local ex-poly, there is no one around to rebut this misconception.

Reply 9

Notoriety

Original post by J-SP

Most families who are at this level of disadvantage can’t even factor in the costs of moving, which in itself can be deemed to be expensive if your disposable income is less than £50 a week. If you have spent your life counting pennies to survive, the idea of all of a sudden throwing money at travel to and from your home to uni is not going to change because you have been given a scholarship is not going to come easy to most. Plus, many students also have a financial or other commitment to the family home which means they need to stay local - whether that be working in the family business or having caring responsibilities.

£8,7000 and £2,000 approx. from scholarships is enough to survive. Especially for a student who has been brought up on eggy-bread and Pot Noodles. Remember, this study is talking about NS-SEC level 8s. The poorest of the lot, the underclass. There are no business commitments, they haven't just missed the scholarship threshold, maybe they have caring responsibilities but not significantly more than 7s.

The issue is often the lack of knowledge of the financial support you can get and that they are not always guaranteed. Many live just above the cut off line to be awarded such means too.

The dodgy grades point I don’t really agree with. They could go to any university that has the dodgy grade requirement in the UK - that could 3 miles away or 300 miles away. Universities with entry high tariffs will also have the same local disadvantaged demographic.

Well, it tends to be the low entry unis which do not have automatic scholarships or are stingy with them. So the ability to travel over 300 miles would in fact be lessened, were you to have low grades and were you only able to go to shoddy unis. That is not to mention that CCC unis tend to be more dispersed across the UK than ABB+ unis, so you don't have to travel as far to get into courses taking crap grades. Also students who get CCC are not very ambitious, so also lack the incentive to inconvenience themselves by moving 300 miles for Course X.

Reply 10

Good bloke

Original post by shadowdweller

there's no inherent reason you'd miss out on the social side really.

You are forgetting the opportunity to learn to live independently, to learn to struggle without parental cosseting, to learn how to cope with conflict and the difficult bits of life. The social side is not of paramount importance in the university experience but growing up is of enormous importance.

Reply 11

shadowdweller

Volunteer Section Leader

Original post by Good bloke

Personally I don't really think university offers that opportunity to the level of actually being self sufficient, given how much less you need to be responsible for living in halls, and the number of people around you if you move with friends from second year. You deal with more challenges after uni, the actual time there wasn't particularly challenging in that sense, at least in my view.

Reply 12

Notoriety

Original post by J-SP

There’s some horrendous assumptions in there. Needless to say, I don’t think this view is representative of how things actually work, Ian variety of levels.

It is very easy to simply dismiss a proposition. It takes a little bit of skill to rebut it, doesn't it?

Maybe you don't know why you disagree.

Reply 13

yudothis

Original post by Danny Dorito

Is university to learn or to have the "uni experience"?

I think that says it all about the sheer number of people in UK going to university, lol.

Reply 14

Good bloke

Original post by shadowdweller

No but it is a stepping stone to full independence and teaches valuable skills in that area, and having that base skill level, alongside having a few entitlement expectations knocked off, equips you better to face those later challenges.

Reply 15

shadowdweller

Volunteer Section Leader

Original post by Good bloke

I don't think it's the only way though; people should know the basic skills it teaches before getting to that point anyway in my view, and it's not particularly more challenging to make the leap to independence with those small steps added into the mix.

Reply 16

Good bloke

Original post by shadowdweller

Well, the Sutton Trust clearly agrees with me that living away from home improves your life skills, makes the transition to full independence easier, and enhances your chances to succeed.

Reply 17

Notoriety

Original post by J-SP

Maybe... or maybe I just don't want to waste my time. I haven't seen anything but speculation in your posts.

Yet you waste your time with this vacuous reply. I was making a serious point that pouring money at financially destitute students (as they're applying to uni) won't fix anything, opportunities' wise; the real fix is increasing the quality of education they receive earlier on.

I am not speculating; I received a scholarship and went to a very expensive city miles away from home. As you graduated 20 years ago, it seems you're the one looking into a crystal ball. I also advised students at the local FE (as a successful alum :u:

); few of the poor students going to the local ex-poly are on A*AA, ya know. So why didn't they go to Warwick instead? Must be because it is too expensive!

Reply 18

ajj2000

Original post by yudothis

Is university to learn or to have the "uni experience"?

I think that says it all about the sheer number of people in UK going to university, lol.

Have times changed so much? Of course people go for the experience.

Reply 19

gjd800

I didn't want the uni experience. I was older, out of a godawful job, already had my mates and saw university very much as a means to an end. I treated my undergrad as a part-time job. So there probably is something to this in some ways, but I don't think it matters all of the time.