Image: Tejvan Pettinger [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Elite universities charge non-refundable fee to would-be postgraduates
Oxford and Cambridge have taken millions of pounds in postgraduate application fees from more than 80,000 unsuccessful applicants over the past three years, Research Professional News can reveal.
At the University of Oxford, most postgraduate applicants are required to pay a £75 non-refundable application fee, while at Cambridge the charge is set at £65. Both institutions operate fee-waiver schemes, but the vast majority of applicants are required to pay.
Oxford alone took £3.8 million from ultimately unsuccessful postgrad applicants between 2016-17 and 2018-19. According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information act, a total of 73,218 postgraduate applicants applied to the University of Oxford during that period. Of that number, the majority—47,277—did not receive an offer.
In total, unsuccessful applicants paid £3.8m in application fees, out of a total of £5.3m generated over that period, the university confirmed. The amount from failed applicants rose from £1.1m in the 2016-17 academic year to £1.4m in 2018-19. The data obtained excludes applicants to the university’s Said Business School.
Oxford operates a fee-waiver scheme aimed at students from low-income countries as well as for candidates funded by UK Research and Innovation’s Centres for Doctoral Training scheme, but this is applies to a minority of applicants.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the University of Oxford said the fee goes towards the costs of “the systems, staff and other resources to support its admissions process for over 30,000 prospective applicants every year—allowing us to properly manage and positively develop our approach to the high and continually growing volume of applications received, from initial queries through to enrolment”.
She added that the fees are reviewed regularly by the education committee’s graduate admissions committee.
Meanwhile, according to FOI data from the University of Cambridge—which charges an application fee of £65—61,236 people applied for postgraduate study over the past three academic years, with application fees totalling more than £3.3m. Most applicants—40,834—did not receive an offer.
Some of those will have been eligible for a fee waiver, but the university was unable to confirm the precise amount of money received from unsuccessful applicants as it says it does not hold that information.
Cambridge offers an application fee waiver for domestic students from “low income households”. This is defined as those students “in receipt of full state support for maintenance as an undergraduate at a UK university within the last four years”. It also waives fees for people with asylum seeker or refugee status, and those from low-income countries—regardless of their personal circumstances.
A spokesman for the University of Cambridge said: “The university receives thousands of postgraduate applications every year. To deliver an effective service we need to levy an application fee, just as other universities do, and UCAS does for undergraduates.
“We are mindful of the obstacle this may create for some applicants, and so have expanded our application fee-waiver scheme. We are committed to widening participation at postgraduate level and have appointed an officer to take forward this work.”
Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Universities, told Research Professional news that receiving millions of pounds from failed applicants “doesn’t look great”.
“All I would say as a counter is that, in the end, you have to finance things—but I would always want an equitable way of doing that, so it is certainly something it would be worth [the university] having a look at, I would say,” he added.
The figures are published as staff at the University of Oxford prepare to vote for a second time on plans to scrap the £75 application fee. Campaigners at the university say the fee is preventing “excellent candidates from applying” and is “detrimental to the university’s research”.
Oxford PhD student Ben Fernando, who launched a campaign to scrap the fee at his institution, told Research Professional News it was “really quite embarrassing that Oxford is making more than a million pounds a year off applicants who don’t get in”.
“Funding core university services through an unfair tax on people who don’t even get in is a highly questionable practice,” he said.
On 10 March, members of the University’s of Oxford’s congregation—the institution’s sovereign body—debated a resolution calling for the abolition of any postgraduate application payment by the 2024-25 academic year. Members voted by a majority of 2 to 1 to retain the fee.
Campaigners are now preparing to put the proposal to an online vote. Senior staff have until 1 April to request a vote, and the ballot will close at midday on 3 April.