TBH it is a bit more complicated than that. The bus services in the area are subsidised by the local authority. With pressure on budgets, these subsidies have been reduced to the point where the services are no longer viable. As a result, in some areas even the services used by kids to go school have been withdrawn. In other areas, there are only just enough funds to run a school bus but that is the only service that is available so it is just there and back once a day and only during term times.
For example, where I lived, the nearest 6th form college was in Kendal, a good 45 min car drive away across the fells. The only bus service was withdrawn just a few weeks before the start of the winter term. Our only service to the supermarket at Barnard Castle went at 11:00 on Wednesday and returned at 15:00. We had a similar service to Hawes on Tuesdays. It was always the same old faces, pensioners using their bus passes. The service was run by Cumbria Classic Coaches and was only viable as a weekly service. Since I left the, "proper" service to Penrith, a 32 mile round trip, has been reduced from several times a day to Tuesday only.