Oxford's Vice-Chancellor Pleads for Support for Post Graduates. (March 5, 2012)

Andrew Hamilton succeeded John Hood as vice-chancellor of  the University of Oxford in October 2009 and baring gross missteps he will continue as V-C until the end of September 2016.

Writing in The Times Professor Hamilton -- who was Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University prior to becoming Provost (2004-08) -- notes that while "it’s the funding of undergraduates and first degrees that we [are] worrying about [and] we’re certainly doing that, endlessly — along with prospective students, parents, teachers and indeed anyone with a real interest in the future prosperity of Britain... the fieriness of that debate, necessary and intense as it is, throws up an unhelpful smokescreen, one that can too easily obscure what I believe is the biggest financial challenge now facing higher education in this country [the UK] -- postgraduate, study. Without better funding options in this country we will not be able to attract the outstanding students who will do the ground-breaking research that shapes the future."

Professor Hamilton also emphasised: "one of the things that gets lost behind the smokescreen is clarity of understanding about the sheer scale and importance of graduate study at our universities. While undergraduate numbers at Oxford in recent years have remained stable, the growth in graduate students has been steep and rapid. They now account for more than 40 per cent of the overall student body... a 2009 government report stated: 'Postgraduate qualifications, both from taught and research courses, are increasingly a necessity for careers in the public and private sectors alike.'"

And finally: "[A]t present, lack of funding prevents too many students of ability from taking up places for graduate study. Nearly half of the graduates who reluctantly turn down offers from Oxford cite money as the reason.

     "[I]f investment in the kind of educational opportunity that is now vital to individual life chances and to future national prosperity is not worth making, I wonder what is. If we don’t do this, the national consequences will be serious. Neither a brain drain of excellent students to places where they can get funding nor a weakening of the vital research base in the UK is in the national interest."