Philanthropy increases the gap dividing highly selective, elite higher education from the rest. Ministers need a plan for the sector overall

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.

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