Coinciding with reunions, Class Gift Bursaries are named after particular year groups. We hope that you will join your contemporaries by making a gift to support Churchillians of the future. Click on your year group’s Bursary fund link below to donate online and add your support today.
Donate to the 1972-77 Bursary Fund
Donate to the 2000-04 Bursary Fund
You can still add your support to the 1995-99 Bursary Fund which was established in 2022. You will be able to read about the impact of Class Giving in the Donor Report when it is published later this year.
The aim for each Class Gift is to raise £100,000 which will endow a full Cambridge Bursary for one student. The Cambridge Bursaries are means-tested and for UK registered students. The funds raised will be invested by the College and only the income, which will be around £3,500-£4,000 per year, will be spent, meaning that the funds are available for as long as Churchill College is in existence.
The average debt after a three year undergraduate degree for a UK student at Cambridge is now an estimated £55,380. While our poorest students can borrow much of the money they need, this can act as a deterrent to considering a university education. Churchill has a long tradition of welcoming students from non-traditional Oxbridge schools and regions forged by a desire to help combat entrenched social and economic disadvantage by improving equality of access and equality of opportunity.
Bursaries and hardship grants make a significant difference in encouraging students to apply to Churchill who otherwise might fear getting into debt, and to their educational outcomes once here. These bursaries have only been made possible because of generous alumni support.
Every individual donation of any size will take us closer to our goal. If 150 alumni donate a one-off amount of £500 (or commit to donating £15 a month for three years), with Gift Aid, this will total just over £100,000. (If you are a UK taxpayer, Gift Aid increases your donations by 25% if you pay tax at the basic rate – and there are other tax incentives for higher rate payers and those living overseas).
Class Giving will leave a lasting legacy through endowed funds that will provide at least one student every year into the future with the same educational opportunities enjoyed by alumni. Please donate what you can using our online donation forms.
Now more than ever before, it is vital that the College has access to the funds needed to continue to reach, support and transform as many of the best young minds as possible, regardless of their financial circumstances. If you are interested in finding out how bursaries help individual students, please visit our Student Support Fund page.
Facts about Bursaries at Churchill College:
- 121 undergraduates currently receive a means-tested Cambridge Bursary
- 68% receive the maximum annual Cambridge Bursary of £3,500, awarded to those with family incomes lower than £25,000
- 75% of offers to UK students in the 2022 UCAS round were made to maintained sector pupils – significantly above the Office for Students (OfS) target of 65%
- 25% of students from state schools were from the most disadvantaged areas of the country according to the “Indices of multiple deprivation” (IMD Q1&2), and 10% qualified for free school meals
- The total expenditure for undergraduates on bursaries, grants & awards in 2021/22 was over £446,000
- There are separate funds for postgraduate students- another £636,000 was spent on funding postgraduates at the College – for more information on these funds please see our Graduate Studentship Endowment Fund page.
