Seal up your postboxes. The university fundraisers are coming.

This week Oxford announced a donation drive of £1.25 billion. It is a bold attempt to rival the big-hitters across the Atlantic. And a necessary one. Oxford's endowment weighs in at around £3.4 billion. Harvard, my alma mater, has £17.8 billion in its corner. It's the one to beat and the one to learn from.

But first, a warning: an institution whose funds rank slightly higher than Guatemala's annual GDP doesn't get there by tiptoeing around student sensibilities. The first request for money dropped through my letter box before I had even boarded the plane for Boston. Then came e-mails, events and hapless classmates calling me regularly for a “chat”.

But here's the thing. It works. Before my graduating class had even found jobs, Harvard popped up to remind us all that we were part of a tribe and that the time for payback was now. All for one, one for all and a little bit for the university.

This does not happen in Britain. Here, being a proud member of a group opens you up to mockery. While American politicians bore on by the hour about their university affiliations, British ones try to sweep theirs under the carpet. People don't want to give to something that they're faintly embarrassed about.

American universities raise colossal sums because they know which buttons to press and they never, ever give up. But, crucially for them, they operate in a culture of giving, honed over centuries. In 1745 the founders of Princeton put £185 in the pot to kick-start their new academic project. Today almost 60 per cent of their alumni return the favour. At Oxford, rates hover at 11.6 per cent.

Fundraisers must be patient. After all, in a country where the only people you see buying Oxford baseball caps are, well, American, it's harder to find an exposed heartstring to tug. Instead, universities should learn to combine the roles of permanent irritant with opportunist. Nothing opens a grumbling graduate's wallet like nostalgia. May Balls, boat races, that dusty room where you studied for your finals. Endowments are made of these.

Strategy is essential. The bankers that run US endowments are granite-jawed capitalists who couldn't care less about professorial pleas or struggling students. They're inventive - Harvard's current investments include a 400,000 acre New Zealand forest - and they hold the purse strings with an iron grip.

But an iron grip is useless if the purse is empty. British students need to grasp reality. Without money, the reputation and appeal of their universities will suffer. A sense of enthusiasm must replace entitlement.

It will be an uphill struggle. How do I know this? Despite Harvard's best efforts, I've still not posted a cheque. Why? Well, I'm British.

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