For some, this question brings back memories of scrambling to organise tenancies and coordinate renting plans. The panic of finding student accommodation in Oxford parallels a national housing crisis, just as manifest here as anywhere else. Private rentals for students line the streets in Cowley and Iffley (and for unfortunate Univ-ites, in the far reaches of Stavs), placing further stress on the already-boosted prices.
It’s no secret that the students are one of the driving forces behind this increasing unaffordability of Oxford: Oxford City Council’s 2021 Census found that 36,217 students lived in Oxford full-time, making up more than a quarter of the city’s population. More than half of these live outside of colleges. Student demand has perhaps encouraged landlords and estate agents to increase housing prices: on average, they have increased 4% this past year, compared to the UK average of 2.2%.
This housing crisis also has a disproportionate effect on those with vulnerable residencies. Proportionally, Oxford has one of the highest rates of rough sleeping, although numbers have dropped since pre-COVID years. The dearth of available council housing regularly forces refugees to pursue Section 95, an accommodation scheme that relocates individuals on a no-choice basis to somewhere else in the UK, with little regard for the ties and communities they may have formed in Oxford.
This issue isn’t unique to Oxford – Durham faces a similar problem with students pricing-out its former residents, and the UK’s housing crisis is far from over. Where Oxford University stands out in particular is through its collegiate system, and the networks of change this allows students to activate.
Even if we, as students, cannot be directly blamed, to think of Oxford’s housing crisis as not our responsibility is an act of deliberate ignorance. When student accommodation never increases above 6% per annum, yet rough sleeping rates continue to climb, it seems pertinent to ask: who really pays for Oxford?
If you’d like to get more involved in the effort combatting homelessness, Oxfordshire Homeless Movement has a page of resources and opportunities where volunteer help is needed. There are options for donating money, items, and your own time.
Last night, Oxford was treated to another spectacular display of the Northern Lights. For many students, this marked the second time this year they felt robbed, missing out on this natural wonder due to an untimely “early night”. The good news is that we’re still in a period of heightened solar activity, and you might have a third shot at getting your once-in-a-lifetime night in Oxford this year.
I’ve been privileged to see and photograph the Northern Lights both times they toured our city of dreaming spires, having also chased them in Alaska and Norway. Through this process, I like to think – or, at least my parents do – that I’ve become a (very) amateur heliophysicist. Here’s my crash course on why the Lights are showing up so frequently this year, and my tips for making sure you don’t miss their next visit.
Northern Lights over the Radcliffe Camera in May. Image Credit: David Hays
The aurora borealis (the Northern Lights, cf. the aurora australis or Southern Lights) are a visual phenomenon that occur as a result of charged particles from the sun interacting with gases in our atmosphere. The amount and frequency of these solar particles reaching Earth fluctuates over time, in accordance with a roughly 11-year solar cycle. We’ve seen an increased number of strong auroral events this year because we’re nearing the peak (or “solar maximum”) of our current solar cycle. While it isn’t possible to know when exactly the solar maximum is until afterward, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that the current solar maximum will be between late 2024 and early 2026.
As we enter this peak period, the sun emits an increased number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), big masses of magnetised plasma that contain the charged particles we need to see auroras from here on Earth. Being aware of when these CMEs (and solar flares, a similar solar event) are identified is the first step to being ready for an auroral event in Oxford. Solar energy takes time to travel the 150 million kilometres between the sun and the Earth, so we typically have a (roughly) two-day heads up when one might be coming our way. A number of sites (e.g., SpaceWeatherLive.com) allow you to subscribe to news updates on this front for free, so you can have plenty of warning before considering a late night.
Note however that it takes a relatively strong CME or flare for the aurora to be visible as far south as Oxford. Sitting at a latitude of 52 degrees north, it takes a substantially greater amount of solar activity to be in the so-called ‘auroral oval’ (the belt-like region in which aurora may be visible) compared to somewhere like Fairbanks, Alaska (at 65 degrees) or Tromsø, Norway (70 degrees). Predicting the extent of solar activity is very difficult until just before impact, but various online models do provide approximated forecasts that can help you make a decision about how high to keep your hopes. The value to pay attention to here is the planetary K index, or Kp, a number which ranges from 0 to 9 – with 9 being highest, and what we observed in May – which represents the real-time strength of geomagnetic activity worldwide. At higher latitudes, the aurora can be seen with a very low Kp value. In Oxford, I’ve only been able to see the Lights with my eyes when the value reaches 8 (as it did last night). If you see a strong CME or flare event, keep an eye on the Kp forecasts; I’d only consider going out if the Kp forecast shows at least 7.
Lastly, solar activity on its own unfortunately isn’t enough; the north-south direction (represented as Bz on space weather sites) of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF; this is the part where my parents think I’m Einstein) is also critical. Aurorae are only visible when the Bz value is in the negative, meaning the magnetic field has flipped south. So, if you’re tracking the numbers online and see that the Kp is above 8, watch the IMF and head outside only once you see that the Bz has turned negative. The only consideration at this point is the weather. Given the aurora dance at an altitude of 120–400 kilometres, anything between us and them can obstruct our show. In cities, this means light pollution. Anywhere, this means fog and clouds. On a strong night (Kp ≥ 8), I’ve seen the aurora from the city centre, but if you want to try your luck when the Kp is hovering on the border, you might see a glow from somewhere like Port Meadow.
Once you’re out there chasing, start by scanning the northern horizon with your smartphone camera in night vision mode (or a comparable low-light setting, available on most post-2016 models). Camera lenses are more sensitive to light than our eyes, so your phone will spot the aurora before you do. If you see something decidedly green, purple, pink, or red (the colour depends on what gases the solar particles are interacting with), let your eyes adjust to the dark, which can take up to 30 minutes. It’s also helpful to manage your expectations – unless there’s a particularly strong geomagnetic event, it’s possible that you might only see a faint glow in the sky, akin to a coloured cloud. Or, you won’t even see the show, but your smartphone camera does. These little disappointments hurt, but keeping your hopes relatively calm will help you appreciate any future event significantly more. Finally, do keep warm in the process, and happy chasing!
In terms of prime spots for taking photos in Oxford, look to be on the southern side of iconic landmarks such that you can have the Lights above them in the north-facing sky. The church side of the Radcliffe Camera and the Broad Street side of the Sheldonian Theatre are both great candidates for this kind of set-up, as is any high-up vantage point in a central college. If you’re lucky (and sufficiently convincing), you might also be able to have your college porter escort you to the roof, where you can capture the skyline and easily adjust your angle of capture no matter where the aurorae decide to appear.
Incoming students at Keble College voiced concerns over the high living costs resulting from a lack of clarity or, in the case of a Foundation Year student, a lack of choice in their application process.
This comes after Keble scrapped fixed-price rent costs in 2022, allowing the college to adjust room costs throughout the duration of students living on-site. The cheapest room, which shares a bathroom with one other person, now costs £30.91 a night compared to £27.24 a night last year.
Such a room charges a total of £5,749.26 for three terms, while the minimum maintenance loan for students living away from home outside of London is £4,767 a year.
Keble students do not have kitchen facilities until their third year, so they must eat in hall or eat out instead of cheaper options such as cooking or meal preparation.
A fresher told Cherwell it is “shocking” that their friend at another college pays about £1,500 less for a room that has a kitchen. They added: “I’ve had to pick up extra shifts to cover the cost of my accommodation so I’m not living on pot noodles my whole time there.”
Keble ranks as the 19th wealthiest undergraduate college out of 31 and is one of the twelve colleges that receive grants from wealthier colleges, according to the SU-supported College Disparities Report published earlier this year.
This difference is not always apparent to prospective students. Another fresher told Cherwell: “I wish colleges were more open about the massive difference in accommodation cost! When I went to open day it wasn’t mentioned, and I thought it would be the same price at all the colleges.”
In particular, Foundation Year students are assigned to a college at random and have no choice in the matter of their accommodation cost.
An incoming Foundation Year student told Cherwell: “It feels particularly frustrating because we had zero control over which college we got… If I progress to undergraduate, I have to live with the cost of accommodation at Keble even though I’m someone who cooks and would have a much cheaper student experience if I had a job and a stove.”
The student added that they genuinely considered Durham because getting self-catered accommodation is easy there: “If I find this year difficult for finances, I will just go somewhere else for my undergrad like Newcastle, Durham, or York because I know I can live cheaper there with my lifestyle.”
According to Keble’s financial guide, the college determines its predicted rents are determined using the formula “CPI=2.5%”, and that students could receive a refund if the actual inflation for the year turns out to be lower than what had been set using the formula.
A Cherwellinvestigation earlier this year finds that Oxford University’s website uses ambiguous phrasing and downplays differences between colleges. A video asks: “Does it matter which college you go to? Not Really.”
Yet the College Disparities Report finds a direct correlation between college wealth and high positions in the Norrington Table, which ranks colleges according to their students’ academic performance in exams.
Oxford University submitted a proposal to partially demolish and refurbish the Sherrington Building, located in the Science Quarters on Parks Road, as the current infrastructure is deterring senior faculty from being recruited.
According to the planning statement, “the building is currently in a critical state of disrepair, the mechanical and electrical ventilation systems are in a dangerously poor state and there are leaks in the roof. Approximately 25% of the main building is uninhabitable and remains vacant.”
The Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics have claimed they are “failing to recruit to senior posts” because the accommodation and infrastructure are not up to standards.
Sherrington Building is a four-storey 1940’s Art Deco structure. The proposed plans include demolishing part of the third floor to construct a new academic hub, which will feature flexible seminar rooms, innovation spaces, open laboratories, support areas, and research offices. Additionally, the University will construct an external terrace with new plant room enclosures, flues and risers.
Construction is broken down into four phases due to difficulties with alternative housing for the whole department. Phase one was completed last year, and phase two – which includes the demolition – has already been approved. The current proposal seeks approval for phase three and phase four, which involve the reconstruction and refurbishment.
As such, the department hopes to revamp the building to a “usable, flexible state that is suitable for modern scientists” – with hopes to combat its current faculty recruitment difficulties.
The charity Oxford Preservation Trust commented that it is “wary” about increasing the size of the building due to “potential harm the proposal would pose on Oxford’s historic skyline”. Its assessment reasoned that effectively adding a storey to the building may obstruct short and long distance views.
Nevertheless, Oxford Preservation Trust is “encouraged” by the plan’s commitment and “[does] not object in principle to the modernisation of the facility”.
The University has been consulting with stakeholders and opening up to public comment as it is “committed to engaging with the local community regarding the development proposals”, according to the statement.
Campaign group Stop the Arc has described the economic initiative connecting Oxford and Cambridge as having “comprehensively failed”.
The Oxford-Cambridge Arc – spanning Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Cambridgeshire – is a region estimated to contribute over £110 billion to the UK economy annually and support over two million jobs.
In a 2017 plan, the National Infrastructure Commission proposed connecting Oxford and Cambridge via East West Rail and a new “Ox-Cam Expressway”, as well as developing 1 million new houses. The government initially supported this prospectus, inviting local authorities to contribute and naming the Arc a key economic priority.
However, Stop the Arc Group has been campaigning against housing development plans and the East West Rail, citing environmental concerns as their reasoning.
The group’s trustee Nick Burton told Cherwell: “East West Rail is damaging to the environment even if electrified due to the construction pollution and its dependency on sprawling rural housing”.
A similar criticism came from the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), which warned against the damaging impact of developing settlements on nature and the climate.
Industry leaders supporting the initiative cited economic gains. A recent report by the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board projected that the region has the potential to add an additional £50 billion to the economy annually by 2030, making the region a “crown jewel” of European science and innovation.
However, Stop the Arc trustee Roger Carey told Cherwell: “The loss of agricultural land, equivalent to as many as 1,100 average size English farms, conflicts with all green agendas and sustainability considerations. [It will] lead to a significant reduction in food production and supply-chain employment.”
As of now, Oxford-Cambridge Arc has not seen much progress. The government transferred the housing development plan jurisdiction to local leaders and cancelled the expressway plan because analysis showed it would not be cost-effective.
Two new papers, the BioMedical Sciences Aptitude Test (BMSAT) and the Ancient History and Classical Archaeology Aptitude Test (AHCAAT) have been announced by the University of Oxford for the 2025 admissions cycle, set to take place next month.
For Biomedical sciences applicants, the BMSAT will replace the BioMedical Aptitude Test (BMAT) after exam provider Cambridge Assessment announced it would be discontinued earlier this year. The new test will broadly assess applicants’ scientific knowledge, consisting of 80 multiple choice questions, across biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics at UK GCSE level. In comparison, the multiple choice section of the BMAT contained 27 questions and spanned content studied during the first year of A-levels as well as GCSEs. Further, unlike the BMAT, the BMSAT will not contain any “thinking skills” or “writing task” sections.
One current second year Biomedical sciences student expressed concern over the removal of the “thinking skills” section: “you could have had a really deserving applicant who just simply hadn’t had the opportunity to be taught some content, but then the critical thinking section gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their skills.” These concerns are heightened by the disparity in the quality of GCSE teaching offered during the Covid-19 school closures. A 2023 study by the social mobility charity Sutton Trust found that 76% of surveyed year 11s believed that their academic progress had suffered due to Covid-19.
Medicine applicants, who previously also would have been required to take the BMAT, will now sit the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT), a standard across nearly all UK medical schools.
The AHCAAT will be taken by applicants for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History (CAAH), who were previously not required to take any admissions tests for the subject. This two-part, essay based assessment will ask candidates to critique the evidence and argumentative rigour offered in an academic passage, before exploring the historical value of a given artefact from the ancient world.
One current second year CAAH student explained that whilst she had appreciated the relief of not sitting an exam during her own application process, she recognised that the format of the AHCAAT compliments well the nature of the course: “it is structured in the form of a ‘gobbet’ and a ‘picture question’, both of which form key parts of the later interview as well as our prelims and finals. They can be quite fun to answer as no previous knowledge is technically needed so you can be quite creative.”
The University told Cherwell that the AHCAAT has been put in place, “according to the usual approval process which includes SU representation”. Additionally, the new exam will undergo a two-year trial period, during which applicants will not be denied an interview or an offer to study based on their performance, but their results may positively inform the outcome of their application.
Like so many, my first year at Oxford was spent trying to conquer imposter syndrome. Despite getting through the interview process unscathed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t what Oxford actually wanted.While passion is imperative, there are few things that this university loves more than confidence.
When the options open to us are either to give in to crippling self doubt, or buy into Oxford’s glossy cult of confidence, it comes as little surprise that the term that flies around Oxbridge students is a far less admirable one: entitlement. Though the average Oxonian might be afraid to admit it, we are constantly told that we are special and that we are, in fact, ‘worthy’.
Think back to matriculation day. Newly gowned in sub fusc, after being chanted at in Latin, you are free to run around the city, champagne bottle in hand, feeling as if you own the place. That is only the beginning—next comes the long list of formals and weird Oxford traditions, intimate tutorials and post-exam trashing. Rightly or wrongly, you undoubtedly feel special. The city of Oxford itself falls away, your world becomes a complete bubble.
For people like myself, living in a world so different from home, the ‘Oxford bubble’ is only too real. I entered into spaces I had never entered before and was told by the university that I deserved to be there. It cannot be avoided that confidence, especially in such spaces, is social currency. It is a valuable commodity within an institutional culture obsessed with achievement and success — a place where LinkedIns are exchanged across the table at formal halls. Egoism goes hand in hand with such a culture.
Looking back at my fresher self, though I am embarrassed by her actions, I can’t help but feel a sense of pity. Unconsciously, I began to morph into this world. My already English accent began to take on a posher edge; and I would return home to Wales and feel like a sellout. Instead of dealing directly with it, I buried my imposter syndrome by conforming to what I thought was the Oxford mould.
So no, you do not have to be an entitled narcissist to apply to Oxford, far from it. Yet, in an institution that has rewarded and cultivated such self-assurance for hundreds of years, it is all too easy to slip into arrogance. The ‘Oxford bubble’ is real, people get trapped within it, and some never manage to escape. Although it may appear to be the perfect system, where all your success comes directly from yourself, Oxford is complicated by layers of unspoken privileges. It’s a culture severed from normalcy, the same old machine that historically upheld the egoism of upper classes. It’s a place where spending six figures on a college celebration seems reasonable in the name of tradition; a tradition that links such extravagance with ‘intelligence’. Oxford, like it or not, is a place that breeds entitlement.
The truth is, I am still not quite sure what it means to be ‘worthy’ of this place. I can be proud of my achievements, confident within myself and academics, while recognising that it is important to step back and actually consider why we are made to feel so special.
Last weekend, a friend and I went for a coffee and a catch up on a Saturday in a packed café. We ordered our drinks, only to realise moments later that the café was completely full and every single seat was occupied. We predictably began to complain about the number of people sitting and working on their laptops (something I am definitely guilty of doing) and from there arose the question – under what conditions is it socially acceptable to work in a café?
This conversation spiralled into a full analysis of general café etiquette. I argued that if you buy a drink, you should be allowed to stay as long as you like provided there are still tables available. My friend, however, was sure that you should be allowed to stay as long as you like (even if there are no other seats free) but only if you continue to buy drinks.
This kind of “first world” problem is particularly common in Oxford, where all the cafés are constantly packed full of students hard at work. Except, one proper glance around a busy café reveals that at least half the people inside are actually just browsing Instagram, reading the latest Oxfess posts, or, a personal favourite of mine, playing GeoGuessr.
So, having spent a ridiculous amount of time working(ish) in Oxford cafés, these are some of the top tips and tricks I have learnt about attempting to navigate Oxford café culture:
1. Arrive early! This is much easier said than done and definitely isn’t a tip that I regularly implement. However, this is pretty much the only way to guarantee a good seat which you are more or less doomed without. A lot of cafés also enforce no laptop policies at lunch time, which means that arriving early is definitely worthwhile if you want to do more than an hour’s work.
2. Sit near a plug. I have made the mistake of sitting miles from a plug and having to very quickly migrate to the nearest library far too many times- which is particularly painful after paying at least £3.60 for an overpriced oat latte. This tip is especially relevant if your laptop is anything like mine and dies after approximately 30 minutes of work.
3. If you don’t think that tip number 1 is at all realistic, your best bet is to head out of the centre. There are actually plenty of really nice cafés outside the centre of town that are generally much quieter, and as an added bonus tend to be much cheaper!! This is also a nice opportunity to get to know some different parts of the city that you wouldn’t usually come across.
4. Bring a reusable cup. Loads of cafés around Oxford tend to have a discount if you bring a reusable cup, and if it’s a KeepCup you can even get a coffee to take into the libraries. Obviously this is more eco friendly but also any savings on coffee are surely a major bonus now that Pret have cancelled their subscription…
5. Try to avoid weekends – especially if you are in the centre of Oxford. Not only does this mean the cafés are all going to be busy and loud, but the owners probably aren’t going to be particularly happy if you’ve been there three hours and there isn’t space for any of their other customers to sit down..
6. Bring headphones. I feel like this really doesn’t need too much explanation, but they are definitely useful to have!
If you are new to Oxford this year, I hope these tips give you a bit of a head start in finding the perfect study spot. However, the best piece of advice I can give, and something that I am still learning myself, is that if you actually have any work to do you are probably better off bypassing the café study session and just heading straight to a real library.
In 2023, Oxford University’s 43 colleges boasted a total endowment of £6.4 billion. This figure is nearly four times as much as that of Oxford University itself and well over ten times larger than the endowment of all other UK universities, excluding the University of Cambridge. The sheer magnitude of Oxford’s collegiate wealth is no secret; yet the ways in which colleges use their extensive resources remain far less transparent.
While all colleges do put aside millions of pounds for student care, this is often only a fraction of their wealth (figure one). In investigating the financial patterns of 15 of Oxford’s richest and poorest colleges, Cherwell found that the vast majority of colleges’ endowments are far more inaccessible and inflexible than we might think.
Figure one
College Disparities
An eighth of the wealth of all Oxford colleges is held by St John’s College alone, bringing its current value to £790 million, well over 20 times the size of some of Oxford’s least wealthy colleges. This inconsistency is a familiar issue to all Oxford students; college disparities have long been a discussion of national debate, student union campaigns, and Cherwell reports.
Yet it is perhaps surprising that these gaping disparities in resources have a relatively low direct financial impact on students. Indeed, a college’s endowment does not predict spending on students. Colleges spend enough money to cover student-related costs: staff wages, subsidising the tutorial system, rent and accommodation, and more. But once they have spent enough to allow their collegiate functions, they are left with large sums of money students never see.
Each Oxford college’s spending on their charitable aims, namely education, varies little. Apart from All Soul’s College, whose ten students naturally generate a very high per capita expenditure, in 2023 St John’s College spent the most per student at £51,000. This contrasts the lowest expense of £13,300 per capita at St Edmund Hall.
Yet the majority of colleges do spend roughly the same amount (graph one). The median amount spent on students in 2023 sits at £19,500, the expenditure of University College. Therefore student spending between wealthier and poorer colleges remains largely the same and nearly all colleges cap student expenditure at roughly the same point.
While some of the richer colleges, such as Christ Church College and St John’s College, do allocate larger amounts of funds for their students than others – both spent around £34 million in 2023 – this is still not proportional to their endowment. This £34 million expenditure, for example, only accounts for approximately 4% of the total endowment held by these colleges.
Indeed, most of the time student expenditure is only a small chunk of a college’s wealth (figure one) and on average over the last five years, the amount colleges have spent on their students has been 6% of their overall endowment.
Furthermore in 2023, The Queen’s College spent £22,800 per student, only 1.5 times more than the £16,000 spent per student by Hertford College, despite the fact that The Queen’s College endowment is five times larger.
These figures suggest that a college’s endowment is not proportional to how much money students actually receive. In fact, when colleges only spend small fractions of their funds on students, the vast majority of their endowment wealth has little interaction with their students at all.
Graph one
Inflexible endowments
The fact that Oxford colleges spend only small fractions of their endowments on their students is not in itself a negative thing. However, analysing the expenditure patterns of 15 colleges over the last five years exposes some problems. Since 2019, there have been two significant times of need – the COVID-19 pandemic of early 2020 and the cost of living crisis of late 2021. During both crises, students were under more financial and academic stress and thus, in need of more economic support. Yet in 2020, the average amount colleges spent on their students fell.
When asked if St Anne’s College felt times of crisis should mean increasing expenditure on students, Treasurer and Finance Director, John Ford, agreed telling Cherwell: “Yes. And we saw that during COVID.” Yet in 2020, St Anne’s College decreased student expenditure from £11.5 million in 2019 to £9.6 million in 2020.
Moreover, Iris Burke, Bursary Manager at St John’s College told Cherwell that during the pandemic the College “minimised increases to student rents and charges and absorbed much of the inflationary pressures” in order to financially support their students at the time. However, students told Cherwell they were “charged the full rent amount each term, despite limited access to [shared] facilities.” Students further described a time “when we were told on more than one occasion, bluntly, that the college would not be considering any rent reduction.”
While St John’s College provided additional funding “in the form of higher academic grants”, students overall expressed how they felt “as though the College was apathetic towards our concerns, with more effort placed in ensuring it maintained the income it would otherwise have collected from the student body wherever possible.”
Increasing investment
Not only did colleges not increase their spending on students during times of economic difficulty, such as the pandemic and cost of living crisis, but they also chose to increase the amount of money they put into investments. In addition to decreasing student expenditure, for example, St Anne’s College put an additional £1.7 million of new money into their ‘other investments’ in 2020.
As a whole, since 2019 the average net amount of money put into ‘other investments’ by 15 colleges according to their last five Charity Commission annual reports has increased (graph two). A college’s ‘other investments’ refers to investments that are usually part of their endowment. Colleges also invest in ‘property investments’ and ‘parent and subsidiary undertakings’, yet these might not always form a part of their endowment.
Although money put into ‘other investments’ plateaued between 2020 and 2021, it was still an increase from the previous financial year of 2019 and it went on to rise again after. These investment behaviours and patterns of colleges are not reflective of the times when students needed more financial support and help.
Graph two
Why colleges can’t spend more
Investment is an integral way that Oxford colleges use their endowment to generate a return that can be used to fund their charitable objectives, namely education, in the long term. But this focus on future maintenance and growth must be balanced with the immediate funding and care given to colleges and their current students. Ford explained the importance of achieving this balance to Cherwell, saying “we cannot put all our income into investments, there would be nothing to fund current expenditure, similarly some funding needs may be short term and funded through current income.”
However, this balance seems to have become skewed with investment being prioritised over students and most of the endowment being inaccessible to students. The large sums of money left unspent in endowments are an unavoidable consequence of the system as a whole. Contrary to how it may seem, endowments are not accessible pots of money that colleges can hand out to their students.
As charities with permanent endowments, colleges are obligated by Charity Commission regulation to “keep rather than spend” this endowment. This helps to maintain colleges in the long-term, allowing them to ensure care for future students; it is by no means an inherently flawed policy.
However, colleges have increasingly adopted protective financial policies that, for better or worse, place the possible needs of future students above the real needs of current ones. The handling of endowments does not prioritise student cost, and in many ways is entirely unrelated to and detached from current student life.
The conservative financial approach also establishes an inevitable level of inflexibility. Colleges adhere to different investment policies to help them maintain and grow their endowment. University College, for example, chooses a policy whereby they withdraw 3.5% of the average real value of their endowment over the last three years. This proportion does, and did not, change, regardless of the performance of their investments or current student needs.
While they aim to strike a balance between spending for the students of the present and the students of the years to come, colleges favour funding the future as a result of inflexible investment policies. Their increasing prioritisation of investments to accumulate and preserve their endowments is more reminiscent of businesses with colleges attached rather than institutions of learning. Although this allows colleges and the University of Oxford as a whole to prosper and survive, it neglects those currently within its walls.
Transparency
It is also important to mention the lack of transparency surrounding college endowments. Although all colleges submit financial reports to the UK government’s Charity Commission, these often remain vague, especially for those without accounting literacy. Furthermore, they often explain large sums of money with ambiguous terms. In their 2023 annual finance report, for example, Magdalen College lists £6.5 million of its ‘Property Investments’ under the vague umbrella label “other”.
Even at a more direct level, college expenditure is not made clear or properly communicated. A JCR Treasurer told Cherwell: “The College is transparent to the extent required by law, but they fail to take a proactive approach to ensure students are aware of its expenditure…This means that the formal transparency does not necessarily translate into effective scrutiny by its members.”
Where does the money go?
The endowment is seen as an Oxford college’s greatest asset: a vast amount of money they can use to achieve their charitable aims and serve their students. Yet in reality, their inaccessibility and inflexibility means they are, by nature, almost entirely detached from student life. The constant focus on the future means these endowments are never truly used to their fullest capability. Student expenditure is confined to only a fraction of a college’s overall wealth and colleges are rendered unable to freely respond to external issues, such as financial crises. Endowments are paralysed and inaccessible funds, both for future students as well as past.
St Anne’s College said in response: “The Covid outbreak occurred in March 2020 affecting four months of college activity. We had very few students in college accommodation, very little on site activity, very low utility bills and, perhaps coincidentally in those numbers, a £924k reduction in our pension provision. Income also fell by around £1.9M The £1.7M related to cash already set aside to repay capital on a loan and was quite separate. The loan was taken out to improve student accommodation. Student accommodation is subsidised and rents alone will not be sufficient to repay the capital, we therefore set up a sinking fund to help repay it. During Covid both the colleges and university dramatically stepped up their hardship support for students. This continued for several years after 2020.
“I think it is important to emphasise that spending on expenditure today, and investing today for expenditure tomorrow are essentially the same thing. Any investments we make are to create income for future student and teaching support. We are an educational charity not a fund management operation. Our endowment and investments are also some of the lowest amongst Oxford colleges.”
Christ Church College said in response: “Christ Church relies as to 54% of its income on the annual ‘take’ from the endowment. This is calculated as 3.25% of the 5-year historic average value of the endowment. We believe that this spending rule represents an appropriate forecast of the excess endowment return over inflation which we can expect over the medium term, so that we will maintain the purchasing power of the endowment. This will support our ability to maintain the wide range of activities which Christ Church undertakes including of course significant support for its students.”
St John’s College said in response:“The College’s endowment is used for both revenue and investments in capital projects in order to improve facilities and enhance the student experience. We have a significant capital programme underway to provide more graduate accommodation and to refurbish existing accommodation for undergraduates and postgraduates. In recent years returns of the endowment were used to fund the new Study Centre and refurbish the existing Library, which students derive direct benefit from.
“The College only charged rent to those students that remained in College during the Covid lockdowns. We also provided grants to those students that needed support with accommodation and food costs if they were in residence at the time.”
Last saturday was the college ball. And oh my God.
It is a funny thing to become a statistic. It all seems so binary before it happens to you. Are you the zero, or the one? Two distinct states of being, two entirely opposite sides. The “me” and the “not-me”. But what is unclear, is the wide expanse between – the grey area. The rose-tinted glasses, the nights spent crying over “nothing at all”, the times you felt like you never left that room where it happened. For those of you who find yourselves consumed by the “grey” – whether you perceive it to be an off-white or a charcoal grey, know that you are not alone.
They encourage me to text him, which I wasn’t going to do as he ignored me in Atik and Bridge in 7th + 8th weeks, and made out with another girl infront of me in 8th week Bridge. But still, I don’t think I was completely done with him as I wouldn’t have done it. So I call him, and he texts me, and I invite him over and he actually comes.
It is also a strange thing to be so vulnerable in front of an audience of strangers. To tell you all a story that has previously just been known, in this detail, between me and him (and a few close friends, naturally). It feels strange to let you into my first year bedroom, to show you all this scene of the both of us on that single bed, a scene I now know by heart. It makes me feel vulnerable. My favourite teacher, Miss Oxlade, used to teach me Drama. She always said she could never imagine singing in front of a crowd – acting is different, you are playing someone else entirely, but singing is you. I used to like drama a lot, I never minded the crowd. In a lot of ways I feel more comfortable like that. Under the bright theatre lights where you can barely see the audience but you know they are there. It is nice to feel listened to. It is nice to have some distance.
I take Xto my room + we lie on my bed and cuddle and talk. I’m still in my dress and so drunk which he knows cuz I keep telling him he has 4 eyes and the first thing he said to me was “how drunk are you right now?”
… Anyways, we are in my room, talking. I learn his actual name,Xis just a nickname. He sprained his wrist in a boat crash and he has 6 meals a day (I keep trying to feed him breadsticks). He’s in my room from 2am-5am…
Whenever I play this scene back, which I often do, there are three of us in the room. It feels a lot like acting and less like singing, because that girl is not me. In the room, is him, the girl in the green dress, and there is me, the observer. I think about how lovely she looked that night. I envy her sweetness; the way she tried to feed him, to understand him, to show kindness in a way I haven’t quite been able to manage to since. But most of all I pity her, because no matter how many times I replay the scene I cannot save her. I still wear her pretty green dress though. After all, it wasn’t the dress’s fault.
We start making out (I initiate). He keeps asking if I’m ok with it. Then he takes off his shirt and asks again “are you ok with it?” and I’m confused + literally think “Oh I guess we are having sex now” which I did want. But maybe not then. I only initiated cuz he seemed like he was going to leave and I didn’t want him to. I never took off my dress – I think I was insecure about my body.
This is probably the time to say if you are a family member or a future employer – I would prefer it if you clicked off. I want to be able to tell this story, I want to get the words out and as far away from me as possible, and I can’t do that if I feel certain people are reading this. It will be easier for me if my audience is hordes of faceless strangers. Once, I sang a solo in school, in front of a crowd of my friends, in a room with too many windows. It was too bright, it was awkward, and it has been burned into some deep recess of my memory. All I ask is that you are a courteous reader and you don’t make me feel 8 years old again, singing “Hallelujah”.
After, he cleaned himself up and then almost looked like he wasn’t going to lie down again. But he did. He also gave me a hickey at one point which now means I am reminded of this bullshit whenever I look at myself. My mum only just noticed it today. She asked “what have you done to your neck?”. I don’t know if she knows what it is or not – probably does. I replied “I don’t know”. But I do. I know what happened and why I did it; that doesn’t make it any better that it happened.
I watched Bridget Jones’ Diary for the first time a few days ago – a super weird way to start this paragraph I know. But I felt so seen by the way that she felt noticed by someone for like 5 seconds and immediately imagined their entire future together. Not to say that I really saw a future with the boy I have been describing, but for a short time before this night he was undeniably important to me. He made me feel noticed, seen, desirable – in a way I hadn’t felt before. I suppose that’s part of why I thought for a long time that it was my fault, because he meant so much to me, because he came when I called. But this still does not excuse his behaviour – my crush did not force him to take advantage of me, my little obsession did not cause him to forget his decency.
After, he got changed and asked if he was the only guy I’d got with this term. I said something like “why are you asking?”. He tells me we aren’t going to become a “thing” as in a serious thing and that I shouldn’t text him sober. If I drunk texted him, I asked, would he reply? He said “I might” with a smile. So if I want to be used for my body I know who to call.
When he said to not sober text him I said “why would I do that?” because I never have, and I never will and HE IS THE ONE that came over sober when I was so drunk and took advantage of me in every possible way. But he did ask and I did say yes so maybe I’m so repulsed by him to hide how repulsed I am in myself that I agreed, that I even called him, that I decided, somehow, at some point, that it would be better to be disrespected and used than to be alone.
I hope for anyone that reads this and sees themselves in my words that you come to a resolution. I hope the endless ways you make it your fault fade away. I hope you see that your story does not have to be air tight – you are not in a court of law, you do not have to cross examine yourself. In truth, it doesn’t matter what you did. If you are in the grey area, then something has happened to you that you know is not what you wanted. That someone has hurt you, properly hurt you – and I hope you see that hurting yourself with these sharp words will not make it better.
That’s not to say it doesn’t take time to realise this, and you have to realise it for yourself. No matter how you choose to deal with it – spending an entire term in your bedroom because that’s where it feels safest, closing yourself off from anything difficult, and listening to the same songs on repeat, being irredeemably and uncontrollably angry that this happened. If that makes you feel better for a time then that is what must be done. But I hope you will see, eventually, that this fixation will not get you anywhere. That when you spend too much time lying down your joints seize up. That when you stop seeing your friends it makes you more miserable than before. That you have to live your life for you.
And, with time, you can reconcile yourself with the person this happened to. You can become you. In time, I hope, you will come to be proud of yourself and the way you acted. You will learn to love that person you try so hard to pretend isn’t you. For me, I am proud of the way I tried to show him kindness, I am proud of the way I tried to humble him and ask why I would even think to call him sober. And, ultimately, I am proud of the way I froze up, because it was me trying to protect myself in that impossible situation, and so I am proud of myself for having my own back.
So this article, for me, is what I hope to be the final words in a chapter of my life I would like to move away from. It will always remain a part of my story, and it will certainly affect the way I behave from now on, but I cannot linger here forever. If there is one thing I have learnt from this whole experience it is that I deserve better.
And a final message to you. You who has read this and thought this sounds oddly similar to a strange night you had in Hilary of your first year. Yes, you. You cannot imagine how many times I have thought over what I would say to you directly, if I could. But really it all boils down to this. I was drunk out of my mind and you were completely sober. I wasn’t, however, drunk enough to forget. While I know you have only ever met me drunk and ditsy, you don’t know the other side.
Because I remember exactly what happened. And I am not afraid.
