Oxford retrenches

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Oxford University announced this week that it would admit fewer British students in order to make room for foreigners who pay full tuition. John Hood, a management expert from New Zealand who took over as the university’s vice chancellor three months ago, said the new policy was part of his larger plan to save money. Oxford, founded some 900 years ago, has been running a deficit of nearly $40 million a year for several years. But student leaders were unhappy with Hood’s first major moneymaking idea. “Universities should not see international students as simply pound signs that will solve the funding shortfall they find themselves facing,” said Kat Fletcher, president of the National Union of Students. Other measures that Hood recommended include curtailing the tutor system, in which each student is paired with a faculty member, and having graduate students teach more of the courses.