Oxford university is setting up a £300m scholarship fund for young people from low-income families.
This is Europe’s biggest single philanthropic push aimed solely at opening up an elite higher education institution to disadvantaged young people.
Michael Moritz, chairman of Sequoia Capital, and Harriet Heyman, his wife, are seeding the fund with a pledge of £75m. The Moritz-Heyman scholarship programme will support its first 100 students from October. Andrew Hamilton, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, said the “remarkable and hugely generous gift” would help the university “go an important stage further towards our goal of ensuring that all barriers – real or perceived – are removed from students’ choices”.