Spring Martlet 2017

WHY LAUNCH THIS SCHEME?
Univ has done a great deal of work to promote access and widening participation over the years. The
College was the first in Oxford to employ a schools liaison officer, its Staircase 12 website is a pioneering
super-curricular support resource, the Old Members Trust generously funds top-up grants and vacation
bursaries for less well-off students, and we have a prize-winning prospectus. Also, many Fellows and
students generously give their time to access and outreach activities, both in College and beyond. All
of this activity has seen a rise in the raw number of applications, and an increase in the proportion of
students applying from, and admitted from, maintained schools in the UK. What it has not seen, however,
is much of a rise in applications from, or offers to, the least advantaged groups. Indeed sector-wide, the
gap between the participation rates of the most advantaged groups and the least advantaged group has
widened, not narrowed, over the last forty years. For better or worse, the University’s access agreement
with OFFA, on which its right to charge the higher tuition fee is predicated, is constructed in terms of the
admission of precisely these least advantaged students.
WHAT WILL IT COST?
The main costs of the bridging programme itself will be board and lodging for students
charged at the internal rate, a maintenance grant for the students, and salaries for a
programme director, tutors and student helpers. We may also wish to add in a small budget
for entertainment and social activities. These can be approximated as follows:
• Board and lodging for ten students and two undergraduate assistants over four weeks
at £60 per person per night, £20,160
• Maintenance grant of £500 per student, £5,000
• Salary of programme director on a three-month contract at grade 6, approximately
£7,500
• Tuition costs, based on an average of 10 hours per student per week, approximately
£10,360
• Salary for two student assistants based on the UNIQ (Oxford Access Summer School)
rate, £4,392
• Social events and entertainment, approximately £1,000
All in all, we are looking at a ballpark figure of £50,000 for a four-week summer school for
ten students. There are likely to be additional direct and indirect start-up costs, including
promotional activities.
Much more significant will be the costs of managing the infrastructural demands of an
increase in the size of the student body. These have to do with accommodation, teaching, and
the ongoing financial support of disadvantaged students. The College has taken steps towards
increasing its accommodation offering, and has plans to supplement its tutorial provision.
I am delighted to welcome
Univ’s creative new initiative
to bring to Oxford more
smart students from
disadvantaged backgrounds
and to provide them with
an innovative bridging
programme to help ensure
that they thrive here.
Professor Louise Richardson,
Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford
My time as an undergraduate
immeasurably enriched
me, both academically and
socially. I want future students
to be able to enjoy the
extraordinary experience
which Univ offered me, and
I am so proud of Univ's
progressive applications
policies, including the Univ
Opportunity Programme.
Sarah Kershaw (1992)
THE MARTLET | SPRING 2017 13