Word: oxfordized
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...Oxford brand guaranteed this scandal would resonate. Two officials of Pembroke College, one of Oxford's 39 constituent colleges, had to quit last week in disgrace when it emerged they were willing to admit a bright but not stellar boy whose father was offering to contribute $420,000. Unfortunately for them, the "father" was a reporter for the Sunday Times. Pembroke and Oxford swiftly repudiated their supposedly wayward officials. All Britain united in condemning the sale of university places. And who could disagree? In modern meritocracies, state-funded universities are supposed to be incubators of talent, not whorehouses...
Education is noble, but a business too. World-class universities must compete in a world market for top-flight professors, research grants and funds to build labs and support needy students. Oxford and Cambridge have huge advantages over less famous universities (Britain now has almost 100), but with the country spending a smaller portion of its GDP on universities than 20 years ago, they too must struggle. Compared to American universities in particular, which the British government frequently extols, they are poor and getting relatively poorer. Harvard professors earn 70% more, on average, than their Cambridge counterparts. All U.K. universities...
...bucks? Not from the government: for the first time it is now asking students to pay some of their tuition and living costs, so it can free up funds not to lavish on élite schools, but to expand student numbers across the country. This year Oxford faces an after-inflation cut of .3% in its government grant. Not from increased tuition: the government won't let Oxford charge more than other universities, though many students (and their parents) would certainly pay it. Like other colleges, Pembroke already runs conferences and trawls for lucrative foreign students, whom the government requires...
What about alumni largess? Here too Oxford is playing catch-up to the U.S. With the government trying to wean many cultural and educational institutions from state funding, virtually all of them have started to hustle the same limited group of donors. But middle-class Brits are a tough sell, because tax breaks have not been as generous as in the U.S. and because they graduated when government picked up the whole...
...wife attended Somerville College, Oxford, 20 years ago. Then the college didn't ask its alumnae for gifts; it didn't even know who they were. There was no list. The principal decided to compile one and, to save money, gave the job to her husband, who labored part-time for several years without benefit of computer or even an electric typewriter. The university shifted to a professional fund-raising operation 15 years ago, but it is still, by American standards, feeble. Last month my wife received a phone call from a Somerville student fund raiser, a welcome innovation...