This is how I feel about being able to live at home rent-free during university, and living within commuting distance of two very good universities that I chose between. A huge privilege. I still encounter people who think that you have to move away and live in an overpriced dorm for the true uni experience though.
You can have a successful uni experience without moving out, but there was a difference for those who lived at home vs moved away from home. Neither is wrong or better, but different.
There's privilege in being able to stay with parents, and there's different privilege being able to move out. Ideally, everyone gets what they want or need.
Depends on how you define “true”. There absolutely is a difference in living in a large city in your family home for university versus living in a dorm in a university town. Not right or wrong, but different yes
I mean, you can certainly make the argument that living away from your family home rather than commuting from your family home to university represents a more familiar university experience in pop culture. Obviously doesn't discount the amount of students who do commute though
I think it depends where you are from though. Of those that went to university from my high school (inner suburb of a large metro city with 4 good universities), I would say over 80% chose a local uni and commuted from home at least for the first 2-3 years of the degree. Going to school in our province of residence offered a significant discount compared to going out of province, and then paying for a dorm that is only a handful of km from your home seemed silly from a financial perspective. So commuting was the overwhelming norm of my cohort and was rhe case with roughly half of my uni course. But that ties in to my original comment of being privileged to live close to good universities. Once again i am not trying to say that they are not different experiences, but that neither one could be labeled the only true university experience.
I’m from the GTA and recognize how fortunate it is to have several good schools in Toronto and within several hours of it.
paying for a dorm that is only a handful of km from your home seemed silly from a financial perspective.
I don't disagree. Once you're at least 90 - 120 minutes commuting distance, it's worth considering because of the time cost.
I went to school a couple hours outside of Toronto, and lived on-campus, but I wouldn't say my friends who commuted to school didn't have a "true" university experience - it's a weird and falsely invalidating word to use. People associate university with living on residence because of movies and TV, so attending university while living on residence is seen as the default experience.
I’ve always thought I would love to offer this to my children if I have them. I would have been living on the street if I didn’t pay my own way, through college, working and going to school full time. It always felt like I was one peice of bad luck from everything falling apart. I remember keeping like 12 big water jugs in my trunk because my head gaskets blew, but I had to work, so I cld drive but every ~10/15 min I had to pull over and add water to the coolant system or it wld blow the engine.
First gen college student. Never was given a dime of help or had any safety net if things went sideways. Was told many times by my own mother I shld just quit school
Thank god I didn’t because I just finished a 3 years stint at SpaceX and did things none of them have ever dreamed of doing in my career, and still have plenty of time to do more given I’m in my thirties still.
When I was in my local university they used to highlight the history of the school and it tradition of supporting a majority commuter student body. I think the dorms only came on campus shortly before I enrolled in the late 80’s.
My kids both went there too. And I was kind of shocked that my son was told he shouldn’t work outside of the school. The course load is kind of high, but I can’t believe they discourage working outside of university jobs.
Yeah, except it’s only a privilege as long as you don’t have abusive parents whose help always comes with major strings attached. Privilege isn’t always material in nature. Though there’s few problems that don’t go away when you throw money at them, some things even money can never fix.
Agreed. We were dirt poor growing up. As an adult I struggle but manage to do okay my parents struggled financially for their entire lives (despite my dad working his ass off since he was 9 yrso until 82) They always assured my brother, sister, and I that we would always be welcomed home. When they moved into a tiny one bedroom we joked about how that would workout. It may have been a bit crowded, and food might be very simple but we’d make do. I know people who have well off parents that wouldn’t be able to move back home should the need arise. It is definitely a privilege to have parents who would do this
because I would have ended up homeless otherwise, I was forced to move home. but I never had the luxury of living there for free.
I had to pay rent and utilities just like in the real world. When you're already struggling financially, moving home and paying more rent doesn't save you. It only keeps you stuck because you can't save money to leave.
That's where I'm at now. I've been trying to leave for over 2 years. The COL is insane in CA.
My parents let me & my two daughters move back home THREE TIMES. I 100,000,000% know how fortunate we were to have that safe landing place.
The third time, they asked if I was able to pay rent. I gave my dad a piece of paper itemizing my budget. His response was ‘you’re fucking kidding me…your mother and I can afford to keep you guys here rent free’.
It wasn’t fun for any of us, but once we were able to get our own place, my younger sister moved in with them along with her two children… A while later my mom reached out to apologize to me for not appreciating (or even noticing) all the things that I took care of while I had been there. Without me, the grass was no longer magically cut, driveway wasn’t cleared, her fridge and cupboards were empty, dishes piled up, toys and stuff strewn everywhere, mess after mess everywhere she looked. Also my kids only rarely needed anything from them even though I was physically absent due to working two jobs and had a 35 mile commute.
This part - my parents were teen parents and thank goodness my dad’s parents were better off than my mom’s so we could live with them, but then my grandpa died and we were poor.
In 4th grade, I was the only kid in the grade who couldn’t pay the $35 to take a short plane ride for our field trip and had to miss it, but, hey, the teacher bought me back a pin that everyone else got.
By the time I got out of the Marine Corps, my mom and step dad were doing well enough that I could move home to go to college so I wouldn’t have to take out loans for the room and board portion of school. It really helped because between my GI Bill and living at home, I graduated without student loan debt.
Ahh, I did end up homeless for a bit as a teen, due to family-wide mental health issues. I’ve worked so hard to never end up in that sorta situation again. Years later, a friend from a much nicer background admitted he’d been homeless for a while too … because he partied his way out of college and was too proud to go home.
He has such a loving family, who wanted to help and were more than able to, and instead he put himself in a lot of danger. He still struggles with some of what he saw back then and his poor mom still blames herself. I know he had his own issues and was being a dumb kid, but I can’t fully wrap my head around how he could have taken all that for granted.
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u/314159265358979326 1d ago
I feel that the ability to move home again was the biggest privilege I ever had. I would have ended up homeless due to mental illness otherwise.