Culturally, new grads in the UK are much more comfortable living in their parents home (especially if they grew up in London, Manchester, i.e. one of the big cities). It is rare for a teenager to own a car, so there isn’t an expectation that you’ll be able to afford one with your first post-Uni job. And if a kid lands a job nowhere near mom and dad, the “ramen lifestyle” with 4 roommates in a two bedroom job is the expectation, not the “oh, poor me” default.
In the US we’ve got so much of popular culture wrapped up in “fab city, fab apartment, fab lifestyle”. Nobody does the math to wonder how Rachel on Friends could afford her apartment on a barista’s salary-- it just becomes the expectation baked in to the anticipated lifestyle. And then loan repayments come as a nasty shock!
Agree with you that the “get a degree, you are set for life” mindset is undergoing a radical reset on both sides of the pond!
Case in point - my son and two Oxford housemates made the move to London post graduation. All reasonably well employed (trader, actuary, securities compliance) in a 3BR/1ba ground floor flat in Wapping next to a car park.
What, 4 roommates in a two bedroom isn’t normal for new grads in the US??? This was literally what I expected even back in the 90s and it is what my kids expect now… admittedly, I’ve always lived in higher COL areas as an adult.
@AustenNut Wow, excellent work. TY! I am honestly quite surprised to see how few Chemistry majors at the bachelors level at Stanford. That stands out as super low for a top university known to be strong in STEM.
I cannot expound on the inner workings of the mind of a teenager. I thought they would do math as well. They do love math - pure math, number theory, etc. They also love chemistry. They haven’t had the opportunity to take as much chemistry, and/or the opportunity to be more advanced in chem came at a later time. Also, they view the career path of a chemist as more versatile than pure maths.
Normal for sure. But by default, not design! The kids who go to colleges with deluxe housing options do NOT think they’ll have to trade down once they’re employed!!! Fortunately, my kids lived in dumps during college and grad school (both on and off campus) so their expectations were quite low!
I don’t think that’s entirely right. Culturally there is a strong bias amongst the middle class to move away for college and not come back home afterwards. But the financial pressures have made moving back home much more frequent, and are a major cause of dissatisfaction, perhaps even more so than in the US, because remember that U.K. universities do treat you like a fully fledged adult. There are also fewer places with a strong economy, so moving back home (if you grew up in a poorer area) may require you to pick specific jobs that are in or adjacent to the public sector (like a teacher or nurse).
And it’s very uncommon to share rooms in college in the U.K., so four roommates in a two bedroom would be very unusual afterwards (unless they are partnered). Instead you’d have a tiny bedroom (eg 10x6ft) that in the US wouldn’t even qualify as a walk-in closet.
However you are spot on with cars (and the ramen lifestyle). In fact two out of three of my brother’s kids hadn’t even passed their driving test when they graduated from college (because it’s very difficult and expensive) let alone owned a car.
I’m not sure that’s true. Most jobs aren’t going to involve employment as a chemist or a mathematician. And in my experience (everything else being equal) employers think more highly of a graduate with a strong degree in math than in chemistry (at least in terms of that being a marker of intelligence and willingness to tackle an intellectual challenge).
This is common in the US also, despite common stereotypes about immediately living lavishly in an expensive place elsewhere. However, that conflicts with the common advice of being willing to relocate to find a job, since relocating and living one’s own typically costs more than continuing to live with parents, even without expensive habits.
I’m not sure if it’s changed (I know student loans had badly affected the UK budget and they were looking at changing some things) but it used to be that they only had to start repaying once a certain income was being earned. (I don’t recall what the threshold was.)
One of my friends from Uni only got her drivers license at age 28 and that was only because she was moving to Canada for a job. Great public transport options aside from the cost (obviously this may depend where you live)
I knew people who treated going to someplace like Manhattan or Silicon Valley after college as sort of like taking a contract on a North Sea oil rig. Meaning they expected their standard of living to be mostly low and the hours punitive, but the money and career advancement was hopefully good, and then they would move somewhere else at some point where they could relax a little, maybe start looking at a house, and so on.
Then one of the common complaints I sometimes hear is a kid moves back to a VHCOL area to live with parents, and they are grinding away, but they don’t feel like they are making quick progress toward anything like the sort of house and such their parents have.
That second kid in some sense is starting in a better place, at least if they can get an equally good job. But the first might have more realistic long term expectations.
And possibly also more favorable spending habits outside of housing. Like, the aforementioned ramen or pesto pasta, not going out a ton, not doing expensive vacations, and so on. Not that this is a universal, but I hear sometimes about recent college graduates living at home who are finding ways to spend their cool new salaries pretty fast.
Anyway, it is definitely not as simple as one decision, like where to live straight out of college.
AFAIK the repayment income threshold is £25,000/~$35,000 (it’s varied from 29k to 23k, I think, across the years) and then people have to pay for up to 40 years because interests keep growing.
It’s a huge tax on college graduates.
Nowhere in the world do students have to get into so much debt for 3 years at their public university - it’s even worse for low income students, whose “maintenance grants” (aka help with paying room&board) were converted to loans in (2016?) so they are £50k ($68k) in debt when they graduate, no choice in the matter, to the point the Sutton Trust, a charitable organization, has a program with full need US elite universities so that carefully selected and trained, top, low income British students who managed to get in, can attend for much much less than it’d cost them in the UK. The British state has so cut resources for universities and made it harder for them to recruit international students (“hostile environment” doctrine) thus lowering that extra income… that they’re going bankrupt despite the mega fees and being public.
Another requirement is that they must have always attended a state school, so top low income UK students who have attended a private school (perhaps on a scholarship) are not eligible
I am the mom of the math head who went to Oxford from the threads mentioned above (and delighted to see all of the wonderful people who helped said math head so much convened here - HI everybody!).
We were in your shoes a few years ago. My math-y kid is just finishing up his second year at Oxford and is having the time of his life. He adores his studies, his tutors and, most importantly (to me at least) has found the most amazing group of friends. It is an incredible pleasure to watch him blossom and com out of his shell in a myriad of ways, taking advantage of the many, many opportunities Oxford supplies.
So, if going to the UK is on the table for your son and there are any questions I can answer please do ask - I’d be thrilled if I could be of assistance in any way. (Not that you don’t have the best advisors here already…)
Yes, that might make the UK the wrong choice. However, I just wanted to offer in case there are any questions I can address.
One thing I’ll just throw in here that might have changed from a few years ago, but also might not - the question of graduate level math courses for undergrads. When we toured colleges there were a few colleges that in theory offered that option, however, when my son asked the tour guides or AOs it turned out that in reality that option was hardly ever done. Brown and Harvey Mudd come to mind here. It seemed to me that he had to ask at every school individually how realistic the theoretical option actually is.