Leading British academics to launch new pvt university

Updated on: Tuesday, June 07, 2011

A group of leading British academics are launching a private university here to rival Oxford and Cambridge, that will charge students 18,000 pounds
a year in tuition fee.

According to The Sunday Times, the New College of the Humanities, based in Bloomsbury, central London, will he modelled on America's elite liberal arts colleges and will start taking applications from next month.

As a private University, it will be exempt of the government's 9000 pounds cap on fees, and will charge up to 18,000 pounds. It begins the first of its three-year undergraduate courses in autumn in 2012.

The philosopher A C Grayling has secured multi-million pound funding from private investors, the report said. In addition to teaching by 14 "star" professors, the for-profit college will offer students weekly one-to-one tutorials.

It is the forerunner of what could be a new breed of American-style private colleges, able to charge a premium price for high-quality teaching.

The 14 professors behind the project, all of whom will teach, include Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist; the historians Sir David Cannadine, Linda College and Niall Ferguson; Steven Pinker, the psychologist; Sir Christopher
Ricks, former Oxford professor of poetry; and Steven Jones, the geneticist.

Grayling is leaving his professorship of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, to become full-time master of the college, which will award University of London degrees, the report said.

It will open at a time when almost every top university trebles undergraduate fees to the maximum permitted 9,000 pounds. As the new college is outside the state-funded system, it is not subject to the cap.

Those who have provided the college's start up funds of up to 10 million pounds include a multi-millionaire Swiss couple, several city financiers, Grayling and the professors themselves, almost all of whom have bought shares in it.

The institution, modelled partly on American collegessuch as William & Mary in Virginia and Amherst in Pennsylvania, will initially teach English, history, philosophy, economics and law degrees.

Students taking the first three disciplines will have to "major" in one of them and take one of the other two as a "minor" subject. The college aims eventually to admit 375 students a year.

It will start by offering roug hly 200 places to students with typically a minimum of three A's at A-level (equivalent to higher secondary level). About a quarter will receive means-tested bursaries or scholarships, some for 100 per cent of the fees.

The academics are also in talks with the government and banks to provide low-interest student loans. According to the report, the institution's full-time staff will be paid 25 per cent above the average at mainstream universities.

Leading British academics to launch new pvt university

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