Oxford Graduate Application 2012/13

As university fundraising is increasingly professionalised, especially in the Oxbridge, Manchester and London universities, and is financially very efficient, it would seem the argument for funding post-graduate students is just not convincing enough.

From a University's perspective I don't think there is a great deal more that they can do. Oxbridge are better than virtually every other University in the UK at using funds to open up access, and it is still not enough.

I was looking at the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program offered by the Blavatnik School of Government. The one year masters program is new and is currently accepting its first class of students in September 2012. Do you guys think that because the program is new it will be easier to get accepted since not a lot of people know about it?

Just for info Oxford and Cambridge are in a league of their own, with good alumni loyalty, excellent appeal to commercial/other donors, and of course the resources of 30+ colleges as well as a core university. Manchester and Imperial are also very successful at raising philanthropic funds. Then UCL, KCL, Bristol, Edinburgh and similar all have strong campaigns. If you want to know details, ask uni Development Offices and try and find the Ross CASE data that is released right about now and details UK university fund raising through a number of metrics.

Well in the UK, the philanthropy you see is the philanthropy that there is. Charities (which includes universities) are obliged to put philanthropic funds to the specific use the donors request. So if there isn't enough scholarship money, that's because potential donors are not donating. As university fundraising is increasingly professionalised, especially in the Oxbridge, Manchester and London universities, and is financially very efficient, it would seem the argument for funding post-graduate students is just not convincing enough.

I'd be interested to know what you think about students who have the academic abilities, passion and zeal to pursue further education, but lack the finance? Say this kind of student was up against one who was also brilliant, but able to self-fund and therefore able to pursue academia. Who is to tell which one would have furthered the field more? Progression is available to those with finance and not to those without. Yes Oxbridge is excellent at funding, one of the best in the UK, hence I applied, but it's not to say its without problems. However, as has been pointed out, this is not just down to the universities. In field like English variety is a necessity if serious progression in the field is to be made. I feel if funding in the arts is not made available by some measure or another, the arts will suffer in the long term.

The education system from this point of view seems highly unfair, if not problematic, to me.

Hard to tell. They say they will increase the class size as they go on (iirc to 60 or 80) but one doesn't know how much applications will increase. The course looks very interesting (and very expensive). I would think that with a start size of 30, they will already have more than enough qualified students to choose from. Not so sure I would want to be in the first class of a new school, though.

Edit: when I went back to look at the website it says applications closed on 9 March. And they commit to fully funding 10% of the 2012 intake.... Which is 3 students! And I did not recall correctly, they are aiming for a class size of 120 eventually.

I got a Clarendon for MSc in African Studies! i can't believe it! good luck to everyone!
Still haven't heard directly from the African Studies Program. But I guess I can assume I got in.

You're going to have to explain that a little better if you want me at least to understand what it is you are trying to convey.

Yes this is one thing that bugs me, especially at Masters level - the absence of means testing for studentships. It leads, to paraphrase Withnail, to a system which is free to those that can afford it, but very expensive to those that can't.

Oxford, whilst having lots of funds, do tend to favour their own graduates.

None of the money coming in to your university is accidentally donated!

I'd be interested to know what you think about students who have the academic abilities, passion and zeal to pursue further education, but lack the finance? Say this kind of student was up against one who was also brilliant, but able to self-fund and therefore able to pursue academia. Who is to tell which one would have furthered the field more? Progression is available to those with finance and not to those without.

The education system from this point of view seems highly unfair, if not problematic, to me.

Yes, well that doesn't surprise me.

It's the distribution of this money that does.

I'd agree it wasn't perfect. But the world and individual lives are far from perfect. The fact is that society doesn't value this level of education sufficiently to support either directly through philanthropy, or indirectly via government funding, in the same volume as their are people who would like to participate. That might be wrong in your eyes, and many of the eyes of us who have spent their life savings on post graduate education and are now not reaping the rewards because of the economic crisis. However, there are very many more unfairnesses in the world that, even as a committed supporter of free education, I would want to see resolved before I voted for my taxes to be spent on full scholarships for all post-graduates.

What the development team have limited control over though, is what the donor wants to give money to. Whilst they have all increased asking for undergrad and post-grad funding, indeed most development campaigns will have this as the first or second priority, it is only a compelling ask to a small sector of people. What you can't do (morally or legally) is refuse a potential donation because it doesn't fit with your internal university priorities.

Precisely.

I have also heard from graduates students at Oxford first hand, that yes the department does favour its own graduates. Now I can almost understand why, but it still exacerbates the current funding crisis even more.

The distribution of the money depends entirely on the wishes of the donor, that's a fundamental of UK charity law.

Actually I think in a University's case that would fall within the scope of contract law and not charity law. The only obligation on the University's part is that the money is used to further the objectives of the charity - i.e. the contents of the Royal Charter.

There is no contract in philanthropic giving. The basics of UK contract law require there is a consideration ie an exchange of something of some, although not necessarily equivalent, value between teh two contracting parties, I give you £5000, you give me a car. The definition of a philanthropic gift is that there is no exchange, the donor receives nothing of economic value in return for their gift. It is remarkably difficult to change the use of philanthropic funds if the donor was explicit in their intended use, it certainly can't be done on a whim or for transient preferences.

I appreciate that my discussion of philanthropy does not cater for the 'government should pay' argument. However, if philanthropy is taken to be a sign of society's willingness to support something financially, then surely government is entitled to follow that lead (assuming the lead is moral/legal etc).

Sorry, this has taken the Oxford thread somewhat off course. Happy to continue in a specific thread if anyone wants.