In the 1980s tuition fees were paid by the local education authority, so most students were not even aware there were fees. There were also maintenance grants to cover the basic living costs. These were means tested, based on family income and expenditure. As the child of moderately successful white collar workers, depending on how many siblings were still at home, your character could expect to get maybe 50% of the maximum grant (as I did, with 3 siblings still dependent and 2 teachers for parents). The parents would be expected to make up the balance.
The full grant would cover the cost of rent and food and books. In the late 70's early 80's my total income (grant + parental contribution) was about £1,200 a year. I paid rent of £350 for the year and I spent £20 a week on food, beer and anything else (amazing the things you remember after so long, but I am proud of the fact that I never had an overdraft in my entire time as a student.)
Also, in the 1980s application to university in the UK was via a central system called UCCA. It was basically the same as the current UCAS. (http://www.ucas.com/ You can also find a list of every course offered at every university there.) You would fill in one application form, name 6 courses you wanted to apply for and your application would be sent to all six. Those that were interested would make you an offer along the lines of "get 2 As and a B in your A Levels and we'll take you". You were allowed to accept one offer and hold a second in reserve, as now. It was more difficult to get an A at A Level in those days because the grades were not given on the basis of absolute score, but on a standard distribution of the entire population of examined students - the top 10% got an A, the next 10% got a B, the next 20% got a C and so on down to F and U (fail and unclassified). Engineering courses at a good university might ask for 3 B's as a standard offer.
As for a choice of university (not school) the courses they offer have not really changed since then. The best for engineering at that time, and now, would be Imperial College, with Cambridge and Oxford as the next choices (except that if you didn't list them first, they would not even consider you, so Imperial, unless you had a desire to go to Oxbridge so you could say you had.)
Next choices would be any of the other Russell Group Universities that do engineering - Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Southampton, etc. Check out their websites, they will all have a link on their home pages for 'Undergraduate Study'.
My aero applications (made in late 1988) were Loughborough and Imperial. Imperial actually had lower requirements, but that might be because Loughborough couldn't be arsed to figure out the Irish equivalents for A-levels.
One small amendment - five, not six, applications via UCCA. At least, when I applied for university in 1978, I could apply to five.
It may be worth mentioning, too, that back in the Olden Days, the offers that were made were very unlikely to be for A grades at A-Level. If a university decided they wanted this particular student, they could make a low offer-a friend who applied to Oxford and passed the Oxbridge entry exam was given an offer of three E grades, ie, pass the A Levels. The offers I received ranged from AAC (Cambridge) via BBC to EEE, depending on where the uni was on my list and whether they really wanted me or not. My subject wasn't engineering, though, so I can't help with other details.
The student would generally pick two - the higher offer would be from the university they most wanted to attend, with a back-up lower-grades offer from another university on the list. If the most-desired university made a nice low offer (say, two Cs or CCE), there'd be no need to bother with a back-up.
It varied a bit by university. For example in 1975 when I applied to read maths, Cambridge wanted A1A1A in pure and applied A & S levels and A level physics. Both Imperial and Durham offered BB in pure and applied. Sheffield and Nottingham offered 1 E. I already had an A grade maths A level taken in the lower sixth. So, long way of saying some universities made pretty much standard offers regardless of whether they liked you. I'd second the various suggestions of loughborough as a good place to do aero w/o stellar grades.
As the child of moderately successful white collar workers, depending on how many siblings were still at home, your character could expect to get maybe 50% of the maximum grant (as I did, with 3 siblings still dependent and 2 teachers for parents). The parents would be expected to make up the balance.
The full grant would cover the cost of rent and food and books. In the late 70's early 80's my total income (grant + parental contribution) was about £1,200 a year. I paid rent of £350 for the year and I spent £20 a week on food, beer and anything else (amazing the things you remember after so long, but I am proud of the fact that I never had an overdraft in my entire time as a student.)
Also, in the 1980s application to university in the UK was via a central system called UCCA. It was basically the same as the current UCAS. (http://www.ucas.com/ You can also find a list of every course offered at every university there.) You would fill in one application form, name 6 courses you wanted to apply for and your application would be sent to all six. Those that were interested would make you an offer along the lines of "get 2 As and a B in your A Levels and we'll take you". You were allowed to accept one offer and hold a second in reserve, as now.
It was more difficult to get an A at A Level in those days because the grades were not given on the basis of absolute score, but on a standard distribution of the entire population of examined students - the top 10% got an A, the next 10% got a B, the next 20% got a C and so on down to F and U (fail and unclassified). Engineering courses at a good university might ask for 3 B's as a standard offer.
As for a choice of university (not school) the courses they offer have not really changed since then. The best for engineering at that time, and now, would be Imperial College, with Cambridge and Oxford as the next choices (except that if you didn't list them first, they would not even consider you, so Imperial, unless you had a desire to go to Oxbridge so you could say you had.)
Next choices would be any of the other Russell Group Universities that do engineering - Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Southampton, etc. Check out their websites, they will all have a link on their home pages for 'Undergraduate Study'.
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It may be worth mentioning, too, that back in the Olden Days, the offers that were made were very unlikely to be for A grades at A-Level. If a university decided they wanted this particular student, they could make a low offer-a friend who applied to Oxford and passed the Oxbridge entry exam was given an offer of three E grades, ie, pass the A Levels. The offers I received ranged from AAC (Cambridge) via BBC to EEE, depending on where the uni was on my list and whether they really wanted me or not. My subject wasn't engineering, though, so I can't help with other details.
The student would generally pick two - the higher offer would be from the university they most wanted to attend, with a back-up lower-grades offer from another university on the list. If the most-desired university made a nice low offer (say, two Cs or CCE), there'd be no need to bother with a back-up.
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