My son is focusing too much on how prestigious the uni is…

I’ll try and summarise this as best as possible. I’m a single parent with a very academic and high achieving 16 year old son. On his GCSEs he got: (6) 9 (1) 8 (1) 7

Knowing how academic he is and how he wants to pursuit further education, I don’t have the money to send him to university so I made the decision to move to Scotland after he finished his GCSEs so he could attend University without going into adulthood debt free. As he’s getting his highers and advanced highers this year in Scotland, it will be another year or two before he goes to UNI. He is wanting to go down MChem route at this moment.

For context, I am originally from. Scotland and have tons of family up here including my sister and my mum is moving up next month (his granny), therefore his support system and network has also moved with us.

Here’s my problem, I’ve moved us up here with, what I thought, was the most practical plan. He is now talking about how he wants to go to uni in Bath or if he was able to, Oxford or Cambridge. I’ve told him, there are brilliant unis up here and he will be near family, he won’t have to pay for accommodation and he won’t have to accumulate debt. Which, in this economic atmosphere, I find to be a real advantage.

He will argue about the ranking system of unis and how his degree matters where it comes from because employers look at that. This is part of his personality, so it’s a hard thing to argue with him, he always wants the best of the best. For example he recently started playing golf and got an expensive set of golf clubs when he’s a beginner instead of just getting a £200 set.

Obviously, it’s his life and I don’t want to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do but I feel he’s really really prioritising prestige over practicality and it’s blinding him. But maybe I’m being blinded by practicality and I’m not seeing the bigger picture?

I’ve come here to ask if going to a “better ranked” university is worth the debt he will carry with him into adulthood? And if anyone has any advice on how to navigate this with him.