Bethan Marshall: The freedom of big-city living

For many students, it will simply be cheaper to study in the South-east – not a statement that springs to mind when we consider the soaring costs of accommodation in Greater London. Indeed, the expense of studying in the capital is usually what puts people off. But for a growing number of young people, faced with a student loan and high living costs, staying at home has become an attractive option.

You know the places that offer part-time work in your neighbourhood, and while most parents may reasonably want help with some rent, it will not be the prohibitive charges of a private landlord. If you can overcome the nagging doubt that you have not yet left home, and look to the fact that you are a student in one of the most vibrant and metropolitan cities in the world, then applying to university in your home town seems the only sensible option.

I made a similar decision myself 20 years ago when, having sampled campus life as an undergraduate, I applied to do a one-year, full-time masters in London. Although these were the heady days of decent student grants, even then the award I received was insufficient to pay my rent. So I spent many a happy hour commuting the length of the Central line.

As I was studying 20th-century English literature, I whiled away my time reading novels, feeling a certain virtue that I was conscientiously working at every available moment. Of course this was just a feeble excuse to have a wild time when not sitting on the Tube. But old habits die hard – when I was completing my PhD as a mature student, with a full-time job and a couple of kids in tow, I still did much of my reading in the oasis of the Bakerloo line.

And there is something about being a student in London. You may not have any money, but you feel you have the freedom of the city. Nowhere in London has quite the intellectual cache of the Left Bank in Paris but even now, working at King's College London, I feel lucky to be where I am.

Of course, not everyone studying in the South-east comes to London. Of those that do, many have the good luck to find student accommodation. There is much to be said for life on a campus. In an odd kind of way, it intensifies the experience, though most are glad to escape from the safety net it provides once they have found their feet.

But all this talk of living costs and location should be beside the point. While these factors will always be part of the equation, the single most important factor in your decision should be finding the right course. This is where many of the institutions in the South-east offer an excellent choice. For although many of them are generalist, offering as they do the full panoply of subjects, some of them are specialist colleges with worldwide reputations in their field.

Some are dedicated to the world of business, management or the social sciences. Others specialise in music or art; still others concentrate on science and technology. The ethos that such institutions offer is very different to those where different subject cultures vie with each other in the student population.

Then, of course, there is Oxbridge, that strange hybrid of a South-eastern town. Part-campus, part-city living; part-ivory tower, part-tourist goldfish bowl. Too many consider these twin universities beyond their reach, not because they think they would not get in but because they believe Oxbridge to be the preserve of a privileged class. Sadly, believing this makes it so.

The writer is a lecturer in education at King's College, London