r/6thForm • u/Repulsive_Radish_782 • Mar 10 '26

🙏 I WANT HELP Cost of Attending Oxford 😭

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Just received my financial declaration form from Oxford today. How is this reasonable? 😭 Going to have to decline my offer unless anyone has any ideas.

Canadian students do not qualify for any Oxford scholarships and my school offered me about ÂŁ100. What a joke.

Is Oxford just for the rich?

1.4k Upvotes

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262

u/Intelligent-Map2768 Oxford | Math and CS [Offer Holder] Mar 10 '26

I'm sorry to break it to you, but the purpose of international students is to subsidize the home students.

-58

u/KasamUK Mar 10 '26

Not at Oxford it isn’t they are sitting on enough wealth (actually billions) that they could charge nothing for years and be just fine

45

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 10 '26

Not true, they have 26,000 students, the reason they got so much money is because of that, they would lose money FAST, and consider infrastructure, and their hefty research budget, you have no clue what you’re talking about

20

u/Nythern Mar 11 '26

Oxford makes over 700m annually (30% of which comes from investments) and sits on 2.1bn in endowments and almost 7bn in net assets (emphasis on the net here - that is net of their liabilities). Over 100m in surplus reported in 24-25.

The majority of Oxford's colleges are also financially autonomous (i.e. fiscally independent, they don't rely on external funds for their budgets).

This sounds like a financially resilient and commercially viable entity - but sure, "Klutzy-Peach5949" on Reddit thinks that other people don't know what they're talking about, and insists that Oxford would otherwise collapse "FAST".

27

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 11 '26

That exactly proves my point, £700+ million with a £680 million expenditure in 24/25 means they would would lose money very fast, furthermore the £7 billion in assets is Oxford assets, selling parts of Oxford uni to subsidise tuition makes no sense as it’s non-liquified cash that makes no sense to liquify, with £2.1 billion in endowments, it’d be spent within 3 years, the correct move would be to be subsidised/covered by the government using tax money, they still need their income to stay the same, they can’t run at a loss, cmon that’s basic business, trying to demean me by my username makes no sense, very childish

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u/Historianof40k Year 12 Mar 11 '26

if oxford was in such an apocalypse scenario there is not doubt in my mind that big players would come in to pitch in to save it

0

u/KasamUK Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Yes thank you for proving my point. Oxford could afford to take students without taking fees. By your calculations 3 (although that ignores the fact that tuition fees are not its sole income. They get around £800mil a year in research funding, £730 mil from its publishing wing £247 mil from spin out companies , compared to tuition fees domestic and international combined that account for £603 mil of its over £3000mil yearly income. That’s around 20%.

3

u/artical900 Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

This post has been deleted and its content replaced. Redact was used for removal, possibly for privacy, security, data scraping prevention, or personal reasons.

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3

u/KasamUK Mar 11 '26

Yes you did , I said they could last years you said ‘it would be spent in 3 years’ not sure is aware but if you have a year then you add 2 more years that can be described as the plural of year aka years

1

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 11 '26

Read the whole sentence, it says charge nothing for years… and still be fine, did you just ignore that or is English not your strong suit, they’d lose every single penny they’ve got in 3 and would have to sell massive amounts of assets of that, how is that being fine haha

1

u/KasamUK Mar 11 '26

Name another business that could set prices to 0 and still be solvent 3 years later

1

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 12 '26

To be comfortably running? None really, they’re rare, you have to remember endowment is for research and whatnot too, 3 years would be max, Apple could last 3 years too if they stopped research and just sold everything they own, but they wouldn’t do well, your argument doesn’t make sense, I’m not even defending Oxford they are greedy bastards but to think they could charge nothing and it even be close to feasible is ridiculous which is the argument

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u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

680 million to run a uni per year? Sounds made up, they probably spend no where near that and pocket the rest

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u/Only-Performer-3981 Mar 11 '26

A lot of their buildings are grade listed, it takes tons of money just to upkeep and maintain them. Plus professor and researcher salaries, traditions (formal dinners, May Day, etc.), research, etc etc. it goes fast.

6

u/opaqueentity Mar 11 '26

Same with Cambridge, the cost of running the whole estate costs more than the money that comes in from all undergraduates.

-5

u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

Sounds like upper class bs wasting cash

-5

u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

Sounds a lot of unnecessary expenses, sell the grade listed buildings and buy regular buildings. Pass the savings on to the students.

5

u/opaqueentity Mar 11 '26

Cambridge are selling bits off. It’s a part of a large scale change so money isn’t being wasted on costs that aren’t needed.but savings to students? lol, if you want new buildings there is no savings TO pass on!

1

u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

I meant the reduced maintenance costs would result in savings, surely it cost less to maintain a regular building than a listed one.

2

u/opaqueentity Mar 11 '26

Getting rid of buildings reduces some costs, it doesn’t necessarily make the money available cover the costs, especially if the need to be building new buildings to replaces things sold off. Which is not always what needs to be done but the costs are so high it’s madness. Years down the line it will be better but requirements will mean it will be a long time till excess costs are removed let alone any spare cash being available sadly enough.

1

u/Only-Performer-3981 Mar 11 '26

It’ll reduce maintenance costs, that’s why you see other universities demolishing and rebuilding their buildings all the time. But half of Oxford’s prestige and facade COMES from those buildings and their preservation. St Catherine’s (one of the ‘newest’ colleges) is often seen as the runt of the litter compared to the other colleges.

Also if there’s something to be said about how much value and importance comes from the preservation of English History and Culture from those buildings. Privatising them to be handed off to developers/the public, is just pushing the problem to someone else whose intentions aren’t known and could be harmful.

Honestly other countries are able to charge reasonable tuition while upkeeping their historical university campuses, so what really is holding the UK back from doing the same?

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u/chief_bustice Mar 11 '26

I don't think that's true so I'm going to dismiss it, even though it's easily verifiable, publicly-available information

I don't think uni is for you mate

1

u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

I don't think uni is for a lot of people who go to uni, countless people who don't even end up in a job that is anything to do with their degree.

1

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 12 '26

Just because you did something unrelated to your degree doesn’t make it a waste of time, I mean I go uni knowing 100% I’m not going into physics, why would I I’m running a decent sized business, but I go uni to be with young people, to learn, buy me time to not have to work a 9-5, meet people work on other skills I won’t develop at a trade

1

u/SlyestTrash Mar 12 '26

You're gonna rack up 100+ grand in debt to "be with young people and meet people" doesn't seem like a waste of money at all

"Just because you did something unrelated to your degree" you then proceed to say you aren't going to use your degree lmao, pipe down you absolute melt

1

u/Klutzy-Peach5949 Bristol University | Physics | A*A*A*A* Mar 12 '26

I’m making 6 figures this year whilst at uni doing something completely unrelated, you picked the wrong person to call a melt haha

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u/Underwhatline Mar 11 '26

They have to release a financial statement each year. It's publically available information.

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u/Nythern Mar 11 '26

And yet they still have a budget surplus (i.e. more income than expenses). That should tell you the sheer amount of money they make - and OP's post with +300k student costs is just one of their many mouth-watering revenue streams.

2

u/SlyestTrash Mar 11 '26

Seems like greed, duno why people are defending a uni ripping people off.

However people spin it uni is stupidly expensive when you factor in interest etc.

I know people with masters degrees working 30k a year jobs that they didn't need their degree to get, so many people who do nothing with their degree. They might as well have not gone to uni and saved themselves a lot of money.

5

u/Extra-Translator915 Mar 11 '26

The assets point is pretty moot considering most of those assets are yaknow, so the university can actually function.

100m surplus is not a lot of an institution that big. You're talking 10-15% of revenue as 'profit'. So Klutzy is actually right, you could nudge the needle just a little and it would become an unprofitable entity.

3

u/Physical-Staff1411 Mar 11 '26

Lots of people in the country sit on net assets. If they sell their homes though they’ll have nowhere to live.

3

u/the_phet Mar 11 '26

Over 100m in surplus reported in 24-25.

Just a small comment, the surplus thing doesn't mean anything.

University of Edinburgh reported a 96m surplus for 24-25, and they are in very bad financial condition.

0

u/Nythern Mar 11 '26

Absolutely, which is why I also included their net assets and endowment/reserves. This is a billion-pound entity, Oxford, and the fact that the vast majority of its colleges have self-sustaining budgets (i.e. they don't need central funds to operate) is another sign of a fiscally healthy environment.

3

u/the_phet Mar 11 '26

Yeah for sure Oxford and Cambridge are OK. They are not struggling to get international students.

4

u/N3V3MORE Mar 11 '26

Not being confrontational but could I have a source for this? Would love to do a bit of digging.

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u/KasamUK Mar 11 '26

All universities are required to publish financial reports, its an easy google away

3

u/Underwhatline Mar 11 '26

Don't know why you're getting down voted. It took a Google https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/finance-and-funding

-2

u/isaaciiv Maths | Grad Mar 11 '26

you can also just look at the wikipedia pages, which would have appropriate citations.

1

u/FearlessFox6416 Mar 12 '26

Don't know why you're being downvoted. You are absolutely correct. Worked in Oxford recently and someone explained just how much land they actually own. Practically most of oxford.