‘I’m missing out’: the cash-strapped UK university students forced to live at home

Experts say students from poorer backgrounds increasingly having to limit their options because of money worries

Most days, Mariam spends hours simply waiting.

The 19-year-old University College London student often finishes her lectures by mid-morning but has careers events or society meetings in the evening. The three-hour round trip to her family home means travelling back and forth makes little sense, so she waits on campus instead. More often than not, by the time the event starts, she is too exhausted to stay long.

Living at home because she cannot afford London’s rents, Mariam says she is “definitely suffering from not having the best social life”. “But living at home will also affect my future because I’m missing out on those career opportunities – the spontaneous, after-work coffees, introductions and events – that those who live out take for granted,” she adds.

Mariam – not her real name – is part of a growing group of students living at home rather than moving away to university. A report published this week found that 52% of prospective undergraduates from England’s poorest neighbourhoods expect to live at home while studying, compared with 18% from the least deprived areas.

The Resolution Foundation, which published the figures in its annual intergenerational audit, said rising rents and living costs were increasingly shaping university choices.

For some students, staying at home has its positives. Unlike Mariam, James Davies, an undergraduate at the University of Leicester, believes living at home works in his favour because he doesn’t have to work to pay rent. “I don’t think I’ve sacrificed too much. The people I know who moved away for university needed to do paid work outside of lectures and so didn’t have time to study.”

David Willetts, the president of the Resolution Foundation, said that where students chose to live could shape not just their university experience but the opportunities and networks that influenced the rest of their lives. “Our report shows that living with parents emerges from financial constraints rather than being a free choice, evenly spread across the income distribution,” he said.

Carl Cullinane, the director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, said: “Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are increasingly having to limit their options for higher education studies because of worries about costs.”

Research from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies supports this conclusion, showing 37% of prospective students planning to live at home express a preference for a Russell Group university, compared with 56% of those planning to move away.

“Is going to a local university better than not going to university at all? Yes,” Cullinane said. “But is it optimal to go to a local university because you can’t afford to go to any other one? No.”

Alex Stanley, the vice-president for the National Union of Students , said that “while moving away from home is not a prerequisite for having a valuable university experience, given that there are geographical restrictions on what courses are available, everyone must have the option to move out to go to university”.

Rose Stephenson, the director of policy and strategy at the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), criticised a funding system that enabled students living away from home – outside London – to borrow £10,830 a year for living costs, compared with £9,118 for those living with their parents, despite average annual student rents exceeding £7,500.

“We have a funding system that assumes students can rely on family support, a housing market that makes moving out unaffordable, and policymakers still talking as if the traditional residential university experience is the norm,” she said.

Lucy Haire, the director of sector engagement at the UPP Foundation, is due to publish a report on this issue next month. She warned against losing sight of the benefits of residential university life, arguing that “for many students, the opportunity to move away to study remains transformative”.

But Nick Hillman, the director of Hepi, cautioned against assuming that living at home was necessarily a disadvantage. “For some students, staying at home can mean lower debt, stronger family support and more time to focus on their studies,” he said.

“The key question is whether students are able to access high-quality education and succeed once they are there. If living at home helps make that possible for more people, then it is not obviously a problem that needs fixing.”