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FOR PARENTS

How to help your child choose a university and course

Course first, city second - the questions to ask.

In brief

Start with the course, not the city. For a finance career the degree subject matters less than most parents assume - most graduate schemes accept any discipline - but the course still has to be one your child will finish well, at a cost your family has planned for. The useful questions are about course content, placement years, entry requirements and living costs, in that order.
This page is written for parents of students in Years 11 to 13. Year 11 is not too early: the A-level options form shapes what is later possible, and the first open days happen in Year 12.

Published 8 October 2026 · Updated 8 October 2026

Course first

Read the module list, not the course title. Two courses called 'economics' can differ enormously: one is mathematical and technical, the other broad and essay-based. Ask which your child would rather study for three years, and check the assessment style - exam-heavy and coursework-heavy courses suit different people. A placement year option is worth looking for: it adds a year, but the experience it builds is exactly what finance recruiters ask about.

Entry requirements

Check them before the options form, not after. Most economics degrees ask for A-level maths, which is why maths is the subject to protect in Year 11. Entry requirements vary course by course and change year to year, so read the current pages of two or three specific courses rather than relying on memory or word of mouth.

Reading university statistics carefully

Graduate outcome statistics need careful reading: they mix subject, prior attainment and family background, and a university's average says little about an individual course. League tables measure different things from each other. The more reliable signals are the course content, the placement record, and what current students say on open days.

Cost and location

Tuition in England is capped at £9,790 for 2026/27 and is usually covered by a loan repaid as a percentage of earnings above a threshold. Living costs vary far more between cities than tuition does, and the maintenance loan rarely covers them in full in expensive cities - so the real question is whether your family can bridge the gap for three years, and whether living at home is an option your child would accept.

The timeline

Open days in Year 12, a shortlist by the summer, applications through UCAS in Year 13: the deadline for Oxford, Cambridge and most medicine courses is 15 October 2026 at 18:00, and the main deadline for most courses is 13 January 2027 at 18:00. If a degree apprenticeship is also in play, its applications run earlier and on a rolling basis through the same autumn.

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Related guides

The free parent guide covers course choice, the calendar and what to do each term.

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