Poor more likely to live at home as students says study

POOR STUDENTS are more than three times as likely to live at home while studying for a degree than their wealthier peers, according to a study.

Moving long distances to study for a degree is largely the preserve of “white, middleclass, privately educated young people”, according to the report.

It argues that “student mobility” – whether a student leaves home to go to university or not – is a major issue of inequality in higher education.

The study, published by the Sutton Trust, uses official data to examine whether students who went to university were “commuters” (stayed at the family home) or “movers” (lived away from home).

It found that overall in 2014/15, more than half (55.8 per cent) of young people stayed local for university, attending institutions that were less than about 55 miles away from their home address. “Only one in 10 students attend a university over 150 miles from home, and those that do are socially, ethnically and geographically distinct groups,” the study says. More than three times more students from the lowest social class group commute from home, compared with the highest social class (44.9 per cent compared with 13.1 per cent). In a foreword to the report, published the week after the Government announced a major review of higher education, Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, and who was raised in Wakefield, said: “In the modern economy it is often those who are most mobile who are most likely to find success. “Moving away to university can be an important first step. Moving to London, or other large cities in the UK, can be an ‘escalator’ for social mobility. “But too often, the opportunity to move away to attend university is restricted to those from betteroff homes.”