Former student hands Oxford University £75m to open the door for UK’s poorest

Published on 12/07/2012 00:26

HUNDREDS of the UK’s poorest and brightest teenagers are to be given scholarships to attend 
Oxford University after the institution was handed a £75 million donation by a former student.

The university was gifted the funds by businessman and ex-journalist Michael Moritz and his novelist wife Harriet Heyman.

The money is set to be used to kick-start a new £300m scholarship programme to support 
students from the lowest income families through their studies, Oxford has announced.

It comes as tuition fees in England are tripled to a maximum of £9,000 per year.

Students receiving the new scholarships will have no study or living costs, receive financial support during the holidays and take part in a tailor-made internship programme, Oxford said.

In total, the package will be worth around £11,000 a year, with fees pegged at £3,500, the current fee level before the hike is introduced this autumn.

Oxford said that the £75m donation was the “biggest philanthropic gift for undergraduate financial support in European history”. At an event to unveil the programme in London, Mr Moritz said the aim of the initiative was to ensure that “every headteacher throughout the UK understands that there is no obstacle whatsoever for any of their students, any pupil, who has the academic ability and talent to take a place at Oxford, to be able to gain admission to the university”.