When did students stop living in squalor

A new catalogue fell onto my doormat earlier this month. Although its contents were of limited interest or use to a woman who has all the possessions she needs, it was addressed to me.

For I am the mother of an 18-year-old boy who has just started university.

And, if John Lewis’s Off To University catalogue is to be believed, the key to my son making ‘the change from home to student life a smooth one’ lies within its pages. In other words, the key to his future academic success depends on how much kit he’s got.

This catalogue is a piece of advertising brilliance. We mothers are at our absolute weakest when our beloved offspring are leaving home. Distraught they are leaving the nest, even though we longed for them to win their place at university almost as much as they did, we now want to give them the world.

And what better way to show our devotion than to pack up the car with expensive contraptions that seem more essential than the A-level grades that got them there in the first place? Cast-off saucepans and an old kettle, says the marketplace of Middle England, simply won’t cut the mustard. So, what will?

The catalogue opens with a quasi-list of commandments entitled: ‘Four brilliant ways to study better’.

First comes the advice that never troubled my student days. At all costs, exhorts John Lewis, resist the temptation to stay cooped up working in your bedroom all day. The key to the brain staying sharp is a portable study kit.

Time, then, to invest in a Lenovo Yoga Book Convertible Android Laptop in Champagne Gold for a mere £449.95.

And don’t forget the Motorola Moto G5S Android smartphone, at £229, all the better to send selfies to the parents who paid for the stuff.

The second pearl of wisdom? To use a pen to take lecture notes. Not any old pen, you understand, but an ‘S’ Pen, which only works in conjunction with a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, and which you use to write on the screen. A snip at £599.99 for both.

The age-old maxim ‘Tidy desk, tidy mind’ is the next theme. A feat that will only be achieved, apparently, with the purchase of a Samsung Galaxy Tab keyboard cover (£119.95) and Jaybird X3 Bluetooth wireless in-ear headphones (£109.95).

But it’s not all about expensive kit, the catalogue declares. The fourth key area to maximise your child’s happiness at university is to personalise their room.

She questioned if investing in the latest technology can ensure a better student (file image)

‘A plant or photos can be enough to transform the space.’ At last! Some sense. But wait, we’re not talking about wonky Polaroid snaps Blu-Tacked to the wall. ‘Mum, did you pack the Wacom Intuos Photo Pen tablet (£89.95) so I can personalise and perfect my digital images?’

Every parent wants their child to flourish and achieve what they can. And I understand that times have moved on since my student days. Any improvement in living conditions and facilities must be a good thing.

But wasn’t part of the fun of being a student down to the absence of materialism regardless of your background?

No matter where you were — Cambridge or Cumbria — or whether your father was a lord or a lorry driver, once at university we were in the same boat.

And with that came a refreshing meritocracy. It would be a shame if the shallow one-upmanship of consumerism cast its shadow over our children before they left the sheltered confines of academia for the cut and thrust of working life. But perhaps it’s already too late.

Ambitious fathers flicking through the inventory of so-called essentials will no doubt be sucked in by the description of the ‘perfect partner to power your degree’, a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for £1,749, which ‘enables you to do amazing things at university — and beyond’.

Ah! What a stroke of genius. ‘My child is going to do amazing things — just a couple of grand and I’ll have clinched that golden future for him!’

Mothers, worried their darlings may not be looking after themselves away from home, can take heart from advice on how to ‘eat deliciously on a budget’.

She says she wants her son to have a similar experience to her own in the sense of buying his own kit (file image)

‘To recreate the tasty dishes you enjoy at home, you’ll need the right kit’. Not just a couple of cheap saucepans — scholars of today should aspire to a 16-piece cutlery set (£45), a Kenwood compact food processor (£99.99) and even a Nespresso Essenza mini coffee machine (£89.95). Not forgetting a Nutribullet 12-piece juicer (£69) for nutritious drinks.

What happened to the student cookbook Grub On A Grant with its cheap recipes? Or, for that matter, the kebab van?

The demarcation of leisure time is another baffling development. Bar the weekly essay crisis and a couple of lectures, my generation happily whiled away hours drinking tea in each other’s rooms, having (so we thought) enlightened conversations or poring over a crossword. Not so for today’s undergraduates. If they are not monitoring their physical activity on a Fitbit Alta HR heart rate and fitness tracker (£129.95), they will be documenting their lives with a Canon EOS 200D Double Zoom camera (£749.99). Look, Mum! I got out of bed before noon! Which, frankly, will be a miracle if you follow the ‘sleep in style’ tips, including buying a Simba Hybrid memory foam pocket spring double mattress (£599).

The catalogue is now firmly in the bin. I don’t want to know how my son has decorated his room. I even want his bed verge on the slightly uncomfortable. I want him to know what it feels like to have an ‘essay crisis’.

I want him to choose his own kit, with money that he’s earned himself. I want him to grow up.

Olivia questions if purchasing the most expensive items can really ensure a better and happier student (file image) 

When I went up to Cambridge in 1979, my mother handed me the kit list provided by my college without even reading it.

And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I bought myself some smoky glass plates and bowls from Woolworths for £6. I found an old saucepan at the church fete. My prize possession was a £28 hotplate from Robert Dyas.

I loved that hotplate. I made Campbell’s tomato soup and Heinz mulligatawny and felt like royalty.

I met a fellow student who had the same hotplate, and he boiled potatoes on his. We married a year after graduation.

The other day, I was at a lunch where a mother was saying that her university-age son had been ‘disappointed by the facilities at Eton’. But the worst thing was, she told her story with pride.

If her son opts to study in London, she can buy him a ‘bronze en-suite’ at Chapter South Bank, which bills itself as the student accommodation ideally situated for all of the capital’s universities and boasts an on-site gym, games room, TV snug, 200MB dual band wi-fi, and a ‘sky lounge’ — sofas on a magical roof garden in the open air — all for £344 a week!

Another mother whose daughter was moving into halls of residence recently told me of a conversation she’d had with the porter who’d worked there for years.

‘Has your job changed much in recent years?’ she asked. ‘I now mainly let in the Ocado deliveries,’ he replied.

Is there any reason to suppose that when you’re kitted out and given the best of everything money can buy, you’ll be a better student, a happier person in the long run?

The sky’s the limit, they say — but if you’ve already reached the sky at 20, what next?