One in five students awaiting A-level results plans to live at home while studying at university, prompting concerns that cost pressures are limiting young people’s educational choices.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to plan to study locally than their peers – and “cost concerns” may be a driver of the decision for a number of young people, a report suggests.
A fifth (20%) of Year 13 students who have either applied or plan to apply to university said they would live at home during term time if they got into their preferred university, while 14% said they had not yet decided, according to the Cosmo (Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities) study.
The study has been tracking the lives of a cohort of thousands of young people in England who took A-level exams and equivalent qualifications this summer. In total, 11,523 students in Year 13 were surveyed between October 2022 and April 2023 as part of the research.
Among those who plan to live at home, only 19% said the main reason was because their preferred university was near their home, according to the study by the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies, and the Sutton Trust.
Nearly a fifth (18%) said the main reason was because they could not afford to live away from home, while 46% said they wanted to be near their families.
“Our concern is cases where cost or related factors are driving this decision, which is likely to entrench existing inequalities between those from different socioeconomic groups,” the report says.
