The Financial History of Cambridge University

by Robert Neild

Overview

The University of Cambridge, having suffered hard times before and after the First World War, prospered during the post-war years up until the 1970s. During that period British governments were generous to universities, and respected their independence. As this attitude dissolved, Cambridge obtained a surge in non-government research grants and contracts, and became world famous. But it is now suffering from a financial squeeze caused by repeated cuts in government funding, accompanied by a tide of political intervention. Using the university’s financial records and other statistics, Robert Neild traces the nature and scale of these changes and how they have affected the character of the university, plotting its financial history from 1850 to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857285157
Publisher:	Union Bridge Books
Publication date:	06/01/2012
Pages:	142
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Robert Neild is a fellow of Trinity College and an emeritus professor of economics at Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Preface; List of Tables and Charts; Chapter 1 Financial Infancy and Reform; Chapter 2 Impoverishment; Chapter 3 The Government Steps In; Chapter 4 The Inter-war Years and the 1939–45 War; Chapter 5 The Acquisition of Land for Expansion; Chapter 6 The Ancien Régime; Chapter 7 Government Policy since 1945; Chapter 8 Income and Expenditure since 1945; Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

 ‘A fascinating and highly readable account of the twists and turns of university funding in Britain, seen with wit and insight through the experiences of Cambridge.’ —William Brown, Master of Darwin College, Cambridge

‘Robert Neild brings the eye of a distinguished economist and economic historian to the complex story of the financial development of the University of Cambridge since the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on original research in the archives and official publications of the university, and using figures compiled from sometimes recondite or opaque sources, he brings out very clearly how the decades between 1945 and the late 1970s represented the high point of the direct public funding of Cambridge, and he itemizes in unsparing detail how the policies of successive governments since the 1980s have resulted in disproportionate increases in the scale of administrative costs even as the share of income from public sources has been reduced. In prose that is always readable and accessible to the general reader, this book provides a valuable, detailed, and notably tough-minded, account of the recent financial history of one of the world’s major universities.’ —Stefan Collini, author of ‘What Are Universities For?’ (2012)

Editorial Reviews

‘Neild is to be thanked and congratulated for shining a light into the murky finances not only of Trinity Cambridge as Oxbridge’s wealthiest college […] but now also of the University of Cambridge itself.’ —David Palfreyman, Bursar of New College, University of Oxford, in ‘Oxford Magazine’

‘Prof Robert Neild of Trinity has turned his attention to a detailed study of Cambridge University finances… Until the Second World War, the educational aspect of university life was less important than the opportunity it gave rich young men to establish friendships with others… Prof Neild glimpsed the last of those days when he himself was at Trinity in 1957.’ —Mike Petty, ‘Cambridge News’

From the Publisher