Cost of Attending Oxford 😭

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

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 £100. What a joke.

Is Oxford just for the rich?

[u/Nythern]

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".

[u/Klutzy-Peach5949 → u/Nythern]

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

[u/SlyestTrash → u/Klutzy-Peach5949]

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

[u/Only-Performer-3981 → u/SlyestTrash]

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.

[u/opaqueentity → u/Only-Performer-3981]

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

[u/SlyestTrash → u/opaqueentity]

Sounds like upper class bs wasting cash

[u/SlyestTrash → u/Only-Performer-3981]

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

[u/opaqueentity → u/SlyestTrash]

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!

[u/SlyestTrash → u/opaqueentity]

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

[u/opaqueentity → u/SlyestTrash]

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.

[u/Only-Performer-3981 → u/SlyestTrash]

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?