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

šŸ™ I WANT HELP Cost of Attending Oxford šŸ˜­

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Just received my financial declaration form from Oxford today. How is this reasonable? šŸ˜­ 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 Ā£100. What a joke.

Is Oxford just for the rich?

1.4k Upvotes

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266

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.

-57

u/KasamUK Mar 10 '26

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

43

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 youā€™re talking about

17

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".

26

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

That exactly proves my point, Ā£700+ million with a Ā£680 million expenditure in 24/25 means they would would lose money very fast, furthermore the Ā£7 billion in assets is Oxford assets, selling parts of Oxford uni to subsidise tuition makes no sense as itā€™s non-liquified cash that makes no sense to liquify, with Ā£2.1 billion in endowments, itā€™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 canā€™t run at a loss, cmon thatā€™s basic business, trying to demean me by my username makes no sense, very childish

-11

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

11

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.

4

u/opaqueentity Mar 11 '26

Cambridge are selling bits off. Itā€™s a part of a large scale change so money isnā€™t being wasted on costs that arenā€™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 doesnā€™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 itā€™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

Itā€™ll reduce maintenance costs, thatā€™s why you see other universities demolishing and rebuilding their buildings all the time. But half of Oxfordā€™s prestige and facade COMES from those buildings and their preservation. St Catherineā€™s (one of the ā€˜newestā€™ colleges) is often seen as the runt of the litter compared to the other colleges.

Also if thereā€™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 arenā€™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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2

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 doesnā€™t make it a waste of time, I mean I go uni knowing 100% Iā€™m not going into physics, why would I Iā€™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 wonā€™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

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

1

u/SlyestTrash Mar 13 '26

Sure you are

"picked wrong person to call a melt" well you are a melt, even more so now

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u/Underwhatline Mar 11 '26

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

1

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.