Economist renews calls for Oxford to go private
Prestigious political magazine The Economist has reignited debate over the future of Oxford University after it recommended that the institution should be privatised in an editorial. It suggested that Oxford had more to gain by going independent than by staying state funded and that financial holes could be filled by charging rich students more and attracting more donations from alumni and corporations.
The leader article in this week’s edition stated: “The difficult issue would not be money alone; it would be balancing numbers of notso- brilliant rich people paying top whack with the cleverer poorer ones they were cross-subsidising.” Such a move would bring Oxford more in line with Ivy League universities in America, many of which charge up to £20,000 per year for each student.
Last year Trinity President Michael Beloff QC sparked controversy when he infamously called for the government to ‘take it’s tanks off Oxford’s lawns’. Although he later claimed his remarks had been misrepresented, the comment provoked fierce criticism from student representatives.
OUSU President John Blake accused Beloff of, “living in Neverneverland”, and insisted: “Privatisation would set the colleges against one another, the academic divisions against the colleges, and everyone against the students.”
26th May 2005