The new data comes from the COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) study, which is jointly led by the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO), the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, and the Sutton Trust. It is the largest study of its kind and aims to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational inequality, wellbeing and social mobility.
It showed that 20% of the “class of 2023” plan to live at home during term time if they are successful in getting into their preferred university next week, while a further 14% have not yet decided if they’ll move to their university.
Disadvantaged students are particularly impacted, as families facing financial challenges expect to struggle to support a child living away from home.
Young people from families who used a food bank in the last year were much less likely to apply for university at all, and those that did apply for university were much more likely to plan on living at home (31% vs 17%). This comes at a time when student maintenance support in England will rise by less than 3% this September, well below inflation, putting further pressure on student finances.
