About 2% of UK universities’ income came from donations and endowments in 2024-25 – slightly less than the previous year. At a time when charitable giving overall is down, the announcement last week of a record £190m donation to the University of Cambridge deserves to be welcomed. Higher education funding should not depend on the choices of rich individuals. But education is a social good and philanthropy has a role to play.
The donor is Chris Rokos, a British billionaire hedge fund manager who describes himself as a socially liberal centrist and has previously given money to the Conservative party. The money will fund a postgraduate school of government that is intended to rival the one at Oxford, which was controversially funded by, and named after, the Ukrainian-born billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik.
The UK’s two richest universities already attract a disproportionate share of educational philanthropy. It is less than a year since they announced a £6.5m gift to be shared between them. The other institutions that attract the biggest donations are in London, while Manchester has had success with a campaign launched to mark its bicentenary. But overall, huge disparities in fundraising serve to increase the gap that already divides the oldest and most selective institutions from the rest.
With applications for places from the UK slightly up, the sector’s overall position has marginally improved. But with international student numbers down, a new levy on their fees on the way and an increase in domestic fees that is not enough to cover inflation, some institutions remain in a parlous position. Dundee is in the process of being bailed out by the Scottish government. With figures from the Office for Students due next month, around half of the UK’s universities are thought to be in deficit, making further cuts likely. Demographic changes are a further cause for a concern, with the number of 18-year-olds due to fall after 2030.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has yet to set out its plans to reform university funding, and Rachel Reeves’s decision to freeze the salary threshold at which some graduates start to repay loans has rightly faced criticism. While universities were understood to be a priority of the prime minister’s former chief of staff, Sue Gray, there has been little sense of urgency since her departure, and some experts believe that the most likely next step is a review.
There is no shortage of ideas for how the sector might be reformed. Tim Blackman, a former vice‑chancellor of the Open University, has advocated a modular, comprehensive system, with more common standards between institutions and a reduction in the number of undergraduates on full-time residential courses. Some students appear to agree with him: the proportion who live at home while studying for a degree has risen to 31% from 22% a decade ago. A forthcoming paper from the Higher Education Policy Institute proposes several measures aimed at curbing the damaging distortions produced by marketisation: a cap on growth in student numbers, stronger financial regulations to reduce financial risk, and control of grade inflation. Its author is Tom Richmond, a former adviser at the Department for Education.
Perhaps ministers will draw inspiration about the future of universities from Cambridge’s new school of government. Gifts from billionaires are not the answer, especially since they are a resource mostly enjoyed by an elite few.
