Supporting students:
opening doors to a world-class education
Meet Charlotte, Salma, Siza and Neil...
At first glance, it is a remarkable fact that of the 83 Nobel Prize-winners that Cambridge has produced since 1908, at least a third received a scholarship or a discretionary grant.
Yet for eight centuries, brilliant people have been able to come to Cambridge because enlightened people who can afford to do so, have supported them. Thanks to our alumni and friends, Cambridge has produced generations of graduates who shape the world for the better.
To ensure that tomorrow's achievers and leaders can transcend financial disadvantage, and fulfil their potential for the benefit of us all, philanthropic support is as vital today as it has ever been.
Cambridge undergraduates have these things in common: brilliance, energy, an appetite for a challenge, and a desire to make their mark.
To ensure that they are as diverse as they are brilliant, the University and Colleges are committed to the principles that no UK student should be deterred from applying because of financial constraints, and that no student should have to leave because of financial difficulties.
In line with this commitment, Cambridge's response to the introduction of higher tuition fees for UK students in 2006 has been robust. The Cambridge Bursary Scheme exists to ensure that all students from less affluent backgrounds can cover all of their living costs. Launched in 2005, the Scheme provides bursaries of up to £3,250 a year (and more for students with families who live here all year round), and covers admissions to all 31 Colleges.
Today, Cambridge has one of the most extensive bursary schemes within the UK: 1,833 bursaries were awarded in 2008. A key role within this bursary provision is being played by Cambridge supporters who understand the significance of a world-class eduation, and the importance of making it available to the brightest students regardless of their means. Through gifts in support of undergraduate bursaries, made to either the University or to a College, or directly to the Isaac Newton Trust, which adminsters the Bursary Scheme, they are helping to ensure that the most talented students can come to Cambridge regardless of their financial backgrounds, and thrive.
Continued philanthropic support is essential. Whatever the size of the donation you are able to make, there is probably no gift that could be made to Cambridge that has a more immediate impact than the gift that helps open doors to a world-class education.
Meet Charlotte Richer (top left).
“What made Cambridge special for me,” Charlotte writes, “were the people and the sense of community – the feeling of being treated as an equal and belonging to something bigger than yourself. For me, Cambridge really was a level playing field: what mattered was who you wanted to be, what you wanted to achieve. Getting a full bursary enabled me to make the most of everything that the University had to offer. My time here – so different from my preconceptions of Cambridge – has made me determined to share my experiences with students as unsure about applying to Cambridge as I was four years ago.” Charlotte (Jesus, 2004) worked as an Access Officer for the Students' Union, and is about to join the Cambridge Admissions Office as Schools and Colleges Liaison Officer.
Meet Salma Haji (2nd left).
Salma, the first in her family to attend university and the recipient of a full bursary, has spoken eloquently about the challenges that those from lower income families face – which are not only financial in nature. “At first, there were moments of self-doubt,” she has said of her early days at Cambridge. “But I quickly realised that everyone felt that way, even students from better-off backgrounds.” Salma (Newnham, 2004) graduated with a 1st in Medicine and aims to become a neurosurgeon. She is keen to keep in touch with her school in Hackney, and “tell them about life at Cambridge – especially about the college system, which means that you get a lot of personal support – financial and otherwise.”
Liberating, tough, exciting, enlightening, thrilling: these are some of the words that graduate students at Cambridge use in the Summer 09 issue of Cam to describe their experience of postgraduate study at Cambridge.
In the Government’s most recent Research Assessment Exercise, Cambridge was ranked as the UK’s best research university, and is consistently among the top five in the world in international league tables. Its graduate students pursue deep, focused and original research under the supervision of world-leading experts, with access to outstanding facilities. They form part of a vibrant community of over 6,000 people, over half of whom come from outside the UK, and enrich academic life here with their invaluable perspectives. And they go on to play leading roles within their communities and professions.
It is no wonder, then, that the world’s best graduates want to come to Cambridge – and Cambridge wants to take them. The ability to offer financial support for fees, accommodation and travel lies at the heart of the University’s ability to do so. Without comprehensive support packages offered early on in the application process, top candidates will gravitate to wherever funding exists, or to the world of work, and – particularly in the case of talented people from the developing world – be simply unable to realise their potential.
Our alumni and friends are playing a key role in supporting Cambridge’s graduate students. While landmark gifts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and donors such as Thomas and Grace Chan, Roger Pilgrim and Mark Pigott stand out, Cambridge’s ability to support its graduates is a testament to both collective and individual generosity.
Meet Siza Mtimbiri (2nd right)
Siza is currently researching the impact of HIV/Aids on rural primary school children in Zimbabwe for his PhD, and has also served as President of the Graduate Union. “To be able to be meet the world in one place is a rare experience that I have cherished,” he has said of his experience of St Edmund’s College, where he has found the international atmosphere and the support services for families and mature students, excellent. “Being in a community of learners who are leaders in the field is priceless.” Siza (St Edmund’s, 2007) intends to return to Zimbabwe and work to improve its education system.
Meet Neil Myler (top right)
Meet Neil Myler, who fell in love with Cambridge, “this beautiful, brilliant place”, and with linguistics. In the Summer 09 issue of Cam he describes differences in how he approached learning as an undergraduate and, now, graduate student. Neil (Corpus Christi, 2004) is reading for an MPhil in Linguistics, and aims to pursue an academic career.
As for the next generation of Cambridge undergraduates: many of them are currently attending schools in deprived areas. Many are unaware of their own considerable ability, or that Cambridge is – in Charlotte’s words, above – a ‘level playing field’.
The collegiate University is deeply committed to ensuring that the benefits of a world-class education are accessible to all with the talent to succeed here.
It does so through a vigorous programme of activities designed to raise both aspirations and skills. Spearheaded by the Cambridge Admissions Office (CAO), these range from open days to residental summer schools which, organised in collaboration with the Sutton Trust, offer a taste of university life through lectures, practical work and discussion sessions. Now, thanks to the generosity of Cambridge benefactor Harvey McGrath, CAO is also exploring a number of radical new initiatives including the use of new media to deliver information and advice tailored to the individual needs of potential applicants.
It does so through the work of the undergraduate Colleges, which cast their net across the UK under a scheme that links each participating College with a specific local authority area.
It does so through support services which ensure that, once at Cambridge, all students can flourish, including those with physical or learning disabilities or those who require help with learning a language.
It does so through the superb outreach work of the University's great museums and collections, and of its academic faculties and departments, which have in place remarkable programmes fuelled as much by passionate enthusiasm and creativity as by their slender (and vulnerable) budgets; through the University's dedicated Office of Community Affairs; and through the on-the-ground efforts of the Cambridge University Students' Union – because the desire to share knowledge, enthuse and inspire is as old as the University itself. You can see this desire made manifest in ground-breaking initiatives such as the Millennium Maths and Classics projects. In the University's imaginative use of new media (for instance, the Cambridge Ideas videos that appear throughout this website and which received over 130,000 hits within their first 8 weeks). In the UK’s largest free Science Festival and, now, an exciting annual Festival of Ideas.
Each year, in fact, nearly 3,000 members of University staff, and over 5,000 students, are involved in outreach activity of some kind. Together, they give more than 370,000 hours of their time.
