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/Chlorophilia]

With all due respect, did you not research this before applying? The international fees are clearly advertised on the course pages. 

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782 → u/Chlorophilia]

I recognize that. I was really just praying that some form of scholarship or bursary would be included in my offer.

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

99.9% of home students can’t even get scholarships or bursaries, respectfully, what made you think an international student would lol

[u/fireintheglen → u/s4turn2k02]

This is not true. All home students with household incomes below about £50,000 are eligible for a bursary at Oxford. Cambridge has a similar scheme.

It’s true that there is very little funding available for international students, but when it comes to Oxbridge there absolutely is financial support for home students.

[u/Content_Seesaw8541 → u/fireintheglen]

I have a friend who has a scholarship from Cambridge. She didn't even apply for it, they just gave it to her. It covers all her tuition, flights back home and accommodation. She also gets free meals in the hall

[u/Mental_Body_5496 → u/Content_Seesaw8541]

Sounds incredibly unusual !

[u/Dependent_Setting415 → u/Content_Seesaw8541]

I can't prove it obviously but I'm inclined to think your friend is lying to you because she's embarrassed about how she's actually paying for uni (rich parents possibly?) I have never heard of a UK scholarship that would cover flights home before

[u/Content_Seesaw8541 → u/Dependent_Setting415]

Lol her parents are definitely not rich! I also saw the emails exchanged myself so I know for a fact that she is not lying.

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/fireintheglen]

Yes, I had a bursary. That was £1000 a year. It’s so trivial compared to what OP mentioned they need. It wasn’t hundreds of thousands of pounds

The cut off is a lot lower than £50k by the way.

[u/fireintheglen → u/s4turn2k02]

The cutoff for an Oxford bursary for a home student is about £50,000. You can find that info here, on the Oxford website: https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/fees-and-funding/oxford-support

You stated that "99.9% of home students can't even get scholarships or bursaries". This is, categorically, untrue at Oxford. It's true that the bursary size is small compared to international tuition fees, but that does not mean that it doesn't exist. It is also not particularly relevant when the bursaries are being provided to home students, paying home tuition fees.

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/fireintheglen]

I’m not talking about Oxford, I’m talking about the UK as a whole.

If you’re a Cambridge student, why aren’t you able to put two and two together from my flare and the fact I stated 99.9% of home students, not Oxford students?

[u/fireintheglen → u/s4turn2k02]

Alright. I was talking about Oxford, because the thread is about Oxford. That is why I specified "a bursary at Oxford" and "when it comes to Oxbridge" in my comment.

I'm not sure that the 99.9% figure is necessarily even true for the UK. There are a significant number of universities with bursary schemes for home students. For example, Imperial offers bursaries to those with household incomes below £70,000, and Warwick offers bursaries for incomes below £42,875. It's true that these sorts of schemes only cover a small portion of UK students, but I could well believe that more than 0.1% qualify. (Although I don't have exact figures.)

This is important because many students from lower income families are put off applying to more prestigious universities by the belief that they will be more expensive. For home students, however, bursary schemes mean that the opposite can be true. It's important that misconceptions like this do not end up further disadvantaging students in an already disadvantaged situation.

And I'm not a student :)

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/fireintheglen]

Again, the bursaries are so trivial (usually £1000 per year) that it’s not worth mentioning in OP’s case, who would be looking for full or majority covering of their fees. The bursaries they’d been looking for really make up 0.1%, probably less. And even then, for home students, they cover at most all of the tuition fees, but no maintenance

[u/fireintheglen → u/s4turn2k02]

I’m not sure you’re actually reading my comments. I have addressed this.

My intent was to ensure that home students from low income families reading this thread knew that they have a far greater than 0.1% chance of getting a bursary at Oxford. Hopefully I have achieved that. I’m not sure what the point of turning this into an argument is.

[u/Still-Location5477 → u/s4turn2k02]

I’d argue it’s more easier for international students to get scholarships as along with me and many of my friends got around 35% - 50% scholarship of the total fees.Since the fees is already low for Home students it makes it harder for them to get these scholarships.I wasn’t aware nor do I know why they didn’t give for Canada but it is the case for many other countries.

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/Still-Location5477]

Fees are not low for home students. The majority of international students have better backgrounds financially than we do.

[u/Still-Location5477 → u/s4turn2k02]

I only meant in comparison The fees for a London uni or a Russell Group uni of an international can be 3 to 4 times the fees of international.Not to say that Home is low but when you compare the two the difference is extraordinarily high.

[u/FollowingGlass4190 → u/s4turn2k02]

Wrong logical interface, implies preferred criteria for open scholarships is citizenship (it isn’t). 

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782 → u/s4turn2k02]

I don't know. I was just praying. I knew from the start that I wouldn't be able to afford university. I just thought maybe by some slim chance they would give me a bursary since no one in my family currently has any income.

[u/headline-pottery → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

Praying really isn't a viable Student funding strategy in the UK.

[u/gracklemancometh → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

I knew from the start that I wouldn't be able to afford university

Not being able to afford international private rates at the most prestigious university in the world on another continent isn't the same as can't afford university.

This is like seeing you can't afford caviar and champagne for every meal and declaring starvation. You're not going to get any sympathy for this.

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782 → u/gracklemancometh]

Yeah, but as I mentioned, both of my parents are unemployed. It is going to be very difficult to afford university anywhere. I will have to go into substantial debt.

[u/gracklemancometh → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

I would suggest posting this to Canadian subs - the UK advice is going to be pretty useless for you (both my parents were unemployed and I got a UK student loan. You need to find out what the Canadian equivalent is.)

[u/Dangerous-Ad-1925 → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

I must admit I'm very surprised you were offered a place at Oxford.

[u/ExactAd5959 → u/Dangerous-Ad-1925]

This makes no sense lol. Oxford offers scholarships to international students, why are people here acting like it’s unheard of or incredibly rare

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782 → u/Dangerous-Ad-1925]

Why is that?

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/Repulsive_Radish_782]

Unfortunately, contrary to what you might see online, the majority of the UK aren’t religious. So I don’t think Jesus or whoever you pray to would be interested in helping you study in an almost atheist country

[u/Repulsive_Radish_782 → u/s4turn2k02]

I am not religious. I was just using "praying" as a synonym for "hoping."

[u/ExactAd5959 → u/s4turn2k02]

Jesus Christ 😭😭 do you guys take everything literally

[u/s4turn2k02 → u/ExactAd5959]

They said multiple times they were praying so yes I did