Cambridge May Go Private

[Guest The Relaxation Suite]

Oxford threatened to do this a few years ago. It is a clever threat, as the govt really does not want universities to do this. The underlying point is that he who pays the piper gets his tuned played. The government wants universities to rely on handouts so that they can meddle in admissions policy and (hence indirectly) standards. If oxbridge went totally independent and charged everyone £15k a year (current overseas fees) they would simply take those able to pay and with the best ability/schooling (allowing for the odd child of person who made large donation to college swimming pool fund). Very rapidly there would be no UK students at these universities and the govt would have to admit that the school system they preside over is s**t. It is exactly for the same reason that the govt has always been so antagonistic towards european qualifications like the baccalaureate being used in our schools. It would allow a direct comparison between our schools standards and those of our competitors.

Not just at these unis either. Even many polytechnics are increasing the percentage of foreign students, because they bring in so much money. Walk round many campuses at your average English uni and you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Shanghai.

[South Lorne]

...... they've let the scholarships wither to ensure ability no longer gets you any money, and provided grants/bursaries on arbitrary criteria instead.

.....sounds a bit worrying ...what sort of arbitrary criteria...?.....

[South Lorne]

Not just at these unis either. Even many polytechnics are increasing the percentage of foreign students, because they bring in so much money. Walk round many campuses at your average English uni and you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Shanghai.

..they can afford the fees ...and rents 12 months up front and parents purchasing...many redirected from Australia where non residents were banned from purchasing properties as they were pushing up prices (sounds familiar) ...and with the expensive Aussie $...it's cheaper sending their families to the UK....

[Guest The Relaxation Suite]

..they can afford the fees ...and rents 12 months up front and parents purchasing...many redirected from Australia where non residents were banned from purchasing properties as they were pushing up prices (sounds familiar) ...and with the expensive Aussie $...it's cheaper sending their families to the UK....

And every one of them draining resources that ten years ago would have gone into educating British people. Was it Lenin that said the West would hang itself, and all that was required was to give it enough rope? Or someone else?

[Guest tbatst2000]

It was sometimes said that you could walk from Cambridge to Oxford, and not step off university land. They own huge tracts of countryside. Friend of mine is a tenant farmer in a university farm, just had his rent doubled.

It's more subtle than that. The land iis owned by the individual colleges, not the universities themselves.

[MarkG]

Was it Lenin that said the West would hang itself, and all that was required was to give it enough rope?

That and a century of socialism would be enough to destroy any society... and, even then, the West has outlived Leninism by decades.

[Uitlander]

So what have you got to say with respect to salaries?

I have no idea how much the wage bill has increased over the last decade, but Cambridge makes no secret of it's Salary Scales. As I understand it these grades and ranges are standardised across the HE sector after the national pay and grading exercise a few years ago. You can get a flavour for what types of job fall into each grade by looking at the Current Job Ads,. Essentially a Lecturer is Grade 9, a Senior Lecturer Grade 10, a Reader Grade 11 and a Professor somewhere on Grade 12 (this varies by subject as for example, the hard sciences are likely to command a premium to someone in a humanities subject due to market forces.

[bogbrush]

Financial means should never be an obstacle to the most able pupils getting the best education.

Why not?

I speak not as someone who went to Oxbridge or a public school, but as one interested in the idea that if someone set up an unbelievably brilliant college and charged £40k a year in fees, and only really wealthy people could sent their kids there, why that is wrong.

Edited October 18, 2010 by bogbrush

[Kyoto]

Why not?

I speak not as someone who went to Oxbridge or a public school, but as one interested in the idea that if someone set up an unbelievably brilliant college and charged £40k a year in fees, and only really wealthy people could sent their kids there, why that is wrong.

Fully agree that this should be able to happen.

In the public sector though, it's right that everyone has the same opportunity. Sounds obvious but that is at risk even now.

Cambridge have obviously been a publically funded institution for hundreds (?) of years. Branching off such that the best piece of the public system becomes only available to the rich feels wrong.

[porca misèria]

Cambridge have obviously been a publically funded institution for hundreds (?) of years. Branching off such that the best piece of the public system becomes only available to the rich feels wrong.

Cambridge has been evolving for over 700 years, but mass public funding as we've known it was a thing of the 20th century. The huge endowments that make some of the colleges so wealthy were from the rich of different eras, from medieval aristocracy to modern philanthropy.

I'd be sorry to see future generations denied the opportunity I had. I don't think going private would necessarily cause that: they'd surely use the wealth and industry connections to provide new funding opportunities on their terms, in an updated version of scholarships for poor-but-bright students.

My biggest reservation about it 'going private' is that if they're seen to be a playground of the rich, they'll lose the best applicants, and with it their standing at the top of world rankings. In my day there was a degree called Land Economy that was the butt of jokes, serving to qualify chaps like Bertie Wooster to run their estates. It would be a shame indeed to see other degrees tarred with the same brush.

But maybe there's actually less danger of that outside the inevitably-politicised state sector?