Cuts ‘mean Oxford will lose out on best students’

Professor Andrew Hamilton warned that too little investment is the “single biggest reason” why these students turn Oxford down in favour of studying elsewhere.

In his annual speech yesterday, Prof Hamilton suggested that the UK was at risk of being overtaken by other countries.

He said it was “dispiriting to say the least” that the share of GDP the UK spends on higher education has now dropped to 1.2 per cent, at a time when public expenditure on universities in most other nations was growing.

“When other governments are ramping up investment in higher education, particularly for research, treading water will not be enough,” he warned.

He said that while the UK is spending less, China has a new project to make two of its universities, Tsinghua and Beida, among the best in the world and is investing over 280 million US dollars on each institution, each year, to pursue that goal.

Prof Hamilton added that if funding for postgraduate students was not addressed, “the UK higher education sector will increasingly lose out to its international competitors on the recruitment of the best students and the best academics.

“There are sadly too many examples of Oxford losing bright graduate students to overseas universities because of the funding gap. It is the single biggest reason why those to whom we make offers turn us down.

“Our competitors are not only in the Ivy League but in places like China and India. China now attracts 265,000 foreign students every year. That is a greater number than the 180,000 Chinese students who study outside China annually.

He called for policymakers to take a “fresh look” at postgraduate studying and funding.

Whereas the US government has a federal loans scheme to help graduate students fund their studies, there is nothing similar in the UK. Prof Hamilton also raised concerns about the impact of new visa rules which constrain the “free movement” of students and staff.

Oxford University has also published a set of questions it has asked of students hoping to win a place, in order to give school leavers an insight into its selection process

They include: Why do lions have manes? Would it matter if tigers became extinct? And why are both ladybirds and strawberries red?

Professor Owen Lewis of Brasenose College said: “Some of the best interview questions do not have a right or a wrong answer, and can potentially lead off in all sorts of different directions,”