750th anniversary campaign

In 2013 we celebrate the 750th anniversary of Balliol’s foundation. Our goals are to raise at least £30 million and to double the number of people giving to the College. With your support we will:

• recruit and retain the best academics, providing an outstanding education for our students and sustaining the tutorial system.

• attract and admit the best students on a needs-blind basis, and provide the financial support to enable them to fulfil their academic potential. 

• support research and innovation across the College and give teaching and research opportunities to young academics at the start of their careers.

• provide an exceptional student experience through good quality accommodation, state-of-the-art IT facilities, funding for societies, sports, the JCR and MCR. 

• conserve and make accessible our architectural and cultural heritage - including the Chapel, Hall, Library, archives and Special Collections, Holywell Manor, and our gardens.

• begin the capital building programme.

The money we raise will be applied in three main ways: i) to build up Balliol's endowment, thus providing a permanent source of income; ii) to be spent as income, as part of our Annual Fund, on projects that benefit current students; and iii) to be used on capital projects.

We are also asking all our Old Members and supporters to consider leaving a bequest to Balliol in your will.

Progress with the campaign so far

Since 2006/07 we have raised over £24 million in gifts and pledges. We have been helped considerably by two fundraising committees composed of alumni – the UK Campaign Board, chaired by Nicola Horlick (1979) and John Colenutt (1981), and the North American Campaign Board, based in New York and chaired by Ben Heineman (1965) with Don Gogel (1971) as a Vice-Chair. Download the 750th campaign brochure

Financial Information

The task of delivering a world-class education to our students is one we relish, but it is not an easy one financially. We face twin pressures. Firstly, public funding for universities in the UK as a whole has been in long-run decline since the 1980s, and between 1989 and the present day the level of public funding per student has fallen by over 40%. Fees for UK/EU undergraduate students are set by legislation (with the current fee for undergraduates being capped at £9,000 per annum) and are way below the actual cost of an undergraduate education - calculated as £16,000 p.a.

The College tries to cover the funding shortfall using income from its endowment. However, Oxford as a whole lacks an endowment of the size of many of its competitors internationally. The University and its colleges have a combined endowment per student of around £300,000, whereas Harvard, Stanford and Yale, for example, each have about three times this level of endowment. Within Oxford itself, Balliol is in 13th place among the colleges in terms of its endowment per student

Your support

Now, more than ever, your help is needed. Your contribution will play a role in ensuring that the College's traditions of academic excellence, tolerance, acceptance of diversity and internationalism will continue for generations of students to come. There are a number of tax benefits for donors who are taxpayers in the UK, USA, Canada, Germany or Hong Kong.

Make a gift to the Annual Fund today, to mark Balliol's 750th anniversary.