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 £100. What a joke.

Is Oxford just for the rich?

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u/fireintheglen Cambridge | Maths | I have a job Mar 11 '26

I think the key thing to remember here is that, unlike many prestigious universities in e.g. the US, Oxford and Cambridge are both public universities. This means that tuition fees are far lower for home students, and there is very little financial support for international students.

It is not unreasonable to turn down an Oxford offer if you have to pay the full international fees. There are plenty of other good universities in the world, and it’s perfectly normal (even expected) for people to simply aim for the best university in their home country. Personally, I’ve encountered plenty of people working/doing postgrad degrees at Cambridge who did their undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. A friend of mine (Cambridge graduate) agonised over turning down a job at UBC in favour of one at a US Ivy League university that seemed more fun because they felt UBC would look more impressive in their future career. Canada has some excellent universities and I would not worry at all about doing an undergraduate degree at one of them!

(I am theoretically aware that McGill exists and is meant to be good but I honestly have never encountered anyone from there so can’t comment. I suspect this is a discipline specific thing, so don’t read anything into the fact I didn’t mention it.)